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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE LIFE 
OF JESUS CHRIST 

A SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT OF THE PRINCIPAL 

EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF "THE GREAT NAZA- 

RENE," ESPECIALLY ADAPTED TO THE 

YOUTH OF THE AGE 






BY 



rev. r: G. ROSCAMP, d.d. 



" Manet Immota Fides.'' 1 

" The Immortal Faith Endnre-v'" 



THE 



Mbhetj Press 



Xondon 



PUBLISHERS 
114 
FIFTH AVENUE 

NEW YORK 



/Montreal 



*THF LIBRARY Oh 
OONGRESS, " 

Recsived 

COPYRIGHT ENTRY 

(H. t. ?- *<\ o 7- 

Cs ASS^XXa No 

14 o 3 <? 7- 

COFY 8 



AT* 



Copyright, 1902, 

by 

THE 

Bbbes Press 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGB 

" Introduction " 3 

I. " The Annunciation " 9 

II. " The Birth of the Messiah " 13 

III. ' ' The Childhood and Youth of Jesus Christ " 21 

IV. " The Appearance of the Messiah " 32 

V. ' ' The Reception given to Jesus Christ by the 

People •' 39 

VI. " His Character and His Mission " 45 

VII. "Christ and Nicodemus ; " Or "Seeking 

by Night" 52 

VIII. " The Healing Pools of Bethesda " 60 

IX. " The Miracles Performed by Jesus Christ " 69 
X. " The Miracles Performed by Jesus Christ " 

(Continued) 82 

XI. " The Miracles Performed by Jesus Christ " 

(Continued) 93 

XII. " The Disciples in the Storm " 103 



2 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIII. " The Great Teacher " 114 

XIV. " Christ Teaching by Parables " 136 

XV. " The Transfiguration " 148 

XVI. "Striking Characteristics in the Life of 

Christ" 163 

XVII. " The Lord's Supper " 174 

XVIII. " The Closing Scene : The Beginning of the 

End" 183 

XIX. " Jesus Before Pilate " 191 

XX. " The Great Tragedy " 204 

XXI. " The Burial of Jesus Christ " 217 

XXII. " The Empty Sepulchre " 227 

XXIII. " The Ascension of Jesus Christ " 243 



INTKODUCTIOK 

In" the morning of the world, before the ruby 
portals of the East were opened to admit a 
golden dawn, there was light from the invis- 
ible throne, and refulgence from God's pres- 
ence, which illumined all that He had made 
on the first day of His marvelous work. When 
the six days of Creation were ended, the sun, 
moon and stars poured their flood of light over 
the completed creation, and made the world a 
scene of harmony and beauty; while bird, 
flower and landscape joined with the first hu- 
man pair in offering to the Creator a song of 
united praise. 

The sacred writers have described how man, 
who was created in the image of God, brought 
sin into the world, and all its fearful conse- 
quences. Over the vault where spread the 
glory of a pleased Omnipotence, which bathed 
the world with splendor inconceivable, there 
now rolled the clouds of darkness obscuring the 

3 



4 Introduction. 

heavenly light, and disturbing the harmony of 
the once beautiful creation. 

The promise of a Redeemer was like the 
breaking of a new day on creation, when the 
light of the world rose not in the sky, to pass 
its brief circuit and sink behind the hills; but 
like a sun that should never set, nor lose its 
radiance by any obscuring darkness; a light 
that beats upon the soul, imparting light and 
hope, and brings us back to the Fatherhood of 
God. 

Numerous prophecies had been made by holy 
men of old, that a Messiah should be born Who 
would redeem the world, and the time of ful- 
filment had arrived, and all Israel was looking 
forward to the promised event. 

It was a matter of small surprise to Herod 
when word came to him that a Saviour had 
been born in Bethlehem, who should become 
King of the Jews. But when he had defi- 
nitely learned that this promised King was the 
child of a lowly woman who, too poor to find a 
place in the inn, was forced to seek shelter 
among the lowly beasts of the field, he gave no 
credit to the report, since all Israel had ex- 
pected the Messiah to make His appearance 



Introduction. 5 

clothed in splendor, and with a manifestation 
of power that would prove His heavenly de- 
scent. 

To nearly all Jews the manner of Christ's 
coming was a disappointment, which caused 
many to reject Him and led finally to His 
crucifixion. For four thousand years the sun 
had enlightened the world, nations had arisen, 
flourished, and decayed. 

Already had the Assyrian Empire yielded 
to the Persian Empire, the Persian Empire had 
given way to the Grecian, and at length the 
" Roman," the fourth great Empire in succes- 
sion, had absorbed all those which preceded, 
and extended itself over three parts of the 
known world. 

Over this immense territory the same laws 
prevailed, the same languages were spoken, 
and peace diffused its blessings. 

This was the period foretold in ancient 
prophecy, and chosen by Divine Providence for 
laying the foundation of a Kingdom which 
should never be destroyed, which was destined 
to break in pieces and consume all other king- 
doms. It was now that the Great Personage 
was to be ushered into the world Who was 



6 Introduction. 

denominated the " Prince of Peace/' " the de- 
sire of all nations." It was Palestine, the 
country of the Jews, and the centre of the 
civilized world, which had been long the scene 
of miracles and prophecies, that this mighty 
Person was to grace with His Divine presence. 

It was the most enlightened age which had 
then appeared in the world, while Csesar Au- 
gustus ruled the far-extended dominions of 
Rome, and Herod, falsely called the Great, 
presided over the dependent Kingdom of 
Judea, that this Celestial Character visited the 
abodes of men. 

From the earliest period of recorded time, 
intimations had been given of Him, and these 
had been continued till the spirit of prophecy 
itself was withdrawn from the world. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS CHRIST. 



CHAPTEK I. 



When the time of the " Advent " drew near, 
a messenger of the most exalted rank, elevated 
above all the prophets, was commissioned to 
communicate the joyful news to the earth. 

This was the " Angel Gabriel." In select- 
ing Gabriel there was a wonderful propriety. 
For it was the same angel who, more than five 
hundred years before, had delivered to Daniel 
the prophecy of the " Seventy weeks of years," 
had first mentioned the Messiah by name, and 
pointed out the precise time of His arrival. 

After so long an interval, he was again sent 
to Zacharias to inform him that a son should 
be born to him, Who should be the Prophet of 
the Highest, to go before the Lord as His her- 
ald, to proclaim His approach. 

9 



io The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Then, again, Gabriel was sent to Mary, of 
the family of David, to announce the coming of 
the Messiah in person. 

It appears that, soon after the interview 
with the Angel Gabriel, Mary was impatient 
to tell the extraordinary tidings to Eliza- 
beth, her relative, and accordingly we are told 
she went in haste to the hill-country, to a city 
of Judah, and entered the house of Zacharias 
and saluted Elizabeth. 

But Elizabeth already knew what Mary had 
come to impart. She already knew that Mary 
was to have a son, of a superior nature, Who 
might with propriety be designated Lord — even 
prior to His birth. ~No sooner had Elizabeth 
concluded than Mary raised above herself, 
poured out her inspirations in a poetical strain, 
expressive of the high honor conferred on her, 
and her deep sense of gratitude. 

The prophecies concerning John the Bap- 
tist, the message of Gabriel to Zacharias — his 
loss of speech and its recovery after the birth 
of John; all these were preparatory and sub- 
servient to the arrival of that Illustrious Per- 
son, Who was to be the Kedeemer of the Kace 
of Mankind. 



" The Annunciation." n 

At this time Augustus Caesar, the Roman 
Emperor, issued an edict that all the inhabit- 
auts of the Empire should be registered or en- 
rolled. It was customary, in the case of regis- 
tration, for the Jews to assemble at the town 
or village which had belonged to their ances- 
tors, and as Joseph and Mary went to Beth- 
lehem, it is satisfactory fulfillment of those 
prophecies which had declared that Jesus was 
to be a direct descendant of David, King of 
Israel. 

Joseph and Mary arrived at Bethlehem, and 
while they sojourned there, Jesus was born. 
" But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou 
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out 
of thee shall He come forth unto me that is to be 
a Ruler in Israel ; whose goings forth have been 
from of old, from everlasting." 

In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was 
sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named 
Nazareth, to a Virgin espoused to a man 
whose name was Joseph, of the house of David ; 
and the Virgin's name was Mary. And the 
ane;el came in unto her, and said : " Hail, 
thou art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: 
Blessed art thou among women." And when 



12 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, 
and cast in her mind what manner of saluta- 
tion this should be. And the angel said unto 
her : " Fear not, Mary : for thou hast found 
favor with God; and, behold, thou shalt con- 
ceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and 
thou shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be 
great, and shall be called the Son of the High- 
est: and the Lord shall give unto Him the 
throne of His father David : and He shall reign 
over the house of Jacob forever; and of His 
kingdom there shall be no end." 

Now all this was done, that it might be ful- 
filled which was spoken of the Lord by the 
prophet, saying, " Behold, a Virgin shall be 
with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and 
they shall call His name Emmanuel," which, 
being interpreted, is God with us." 

" And when the fulness of the time was 
come, God sent forth His Son, made of a wo- 
man, made under the law, that He might re- 
deem us who were under the law." 



"The Birth of the Messiah." 13 



CHAPTEK II. 

" THE BIRTH OF THE MESSIAH/' 

Bethlehem, the place chosen by God for the 
Nativity, lies five miles south of Jerusalem. 
To the east spreads a softly undulating plain 
upon which grass grows abundantly, and upon 
which, most probably, the shepherds were 
grazing their flocks when the angel announced 
the birth of Jesus. 

Bethlehem had already become famous as the 
birthplace of David, and about the valleys and 
plains where he had roamed whilst attending 
his father's herds, before being crowned King 
of Israel. 

About this sacred place, also, attaches a holy 
feeling, because it was here that Ruth gleaned 
and Boaz won her for his wife. 

Although Jesus was born among the poorest 
and was cradled in a manger, the glory of God 
shone round the Babe, while angels sped on 

13 



14 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

swiftest wing to bear the glad tidings of Mes- 
siah's birth to the world. Hitherto the prepa- 
rations for the descent of Christ to earth cor- 
responded in some measure with the dignity of 
His rank as the Son of God. But immediately 
afterwards His condescension and humi.ity be- 
came not less conspicuous. 

For no splendid preparations were made on 
earth for His reception, no magnificent apart- 
ments admitted Him, no persons of distin- 
guished power or wealth came to pour out their 
congratulations at His Nativity. " He was 
born in a stable, and was laid in a manger." 

The persons to whom this joyful event was 
first communicated were not kings, nor princes, 
nor nobles, nor learned scribes; but lowly shep- 
herds of Bethlehem. 

While these shepherds were watching their 
flocks by night, a sudden and astonishing vision 
appeared to them; an angel of the Lord was 
seen, and the " glory of the Lord encompassed 
all who were present." By the " glory of the 
Lord " is meant a bright, dazzling splendor, 
which asumed a variety of forms at different 
times. Sometimes it apeared like a blazing 
fire, as a burning bush to Moses. Sometimes it 



" The Birth of the Messiah." 15 

presented itself in the form of a " pillar of 
fire," or a bright cloud, or like an immense 
conflagration, as it did on Mount Horeb and 
Sinai. 

Sometimes it assumed a circular form, such, 
as that which surrounded Paul while on his 
way to Damascus ; " a brightness which, it is 
expressly said, surpassed the splendor of the 
sun at mid-day." 

A light of such refulgent lustre suddenly en- 
circling the shepherds of Bethlehem must have 
dazzled and terrified them. 

Nor was it their eyes alone that were ad- 
dressed on that occasion. A voice was heard 
soothing their troubled minds. " Fear not, 
for lo, I bring you good tidings of great joy, 
which shall be to all people. For unto" you is 
born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, 
which is Christ the Lord ! " " And by this ye 
shall know Him ; ye shall find the babe in swad- 
(1 ling-bands, lying in a manger." 

No sooner was this cheering message given, 
tli an a chorus of heavenly voices sang forth, — 
" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace and good will toward men." 

Here we have an instance of celestial beings 



16 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

congratulating mankind on the birth of their 
Redeemer, and while ascribing glory to God, 
they express ardent wishes and hopes of peace 
and happiness to men, from the prospect of the 
beneficent plans which should speedily be un- 
folded. 

The shepherds departed and went to Bethle- 
hem as directed, and they found Joseph and 
Mary and the Child, as described by the angel. 
When they had seen all, they published what 
had been imparted to them concerning this 
Child. And all who heard it wondered at the 
things told them by the shepherds. 

But Mary let none of these things pass unob- 
served, but pondered them in her heart. But 
the publication of the shepherds was probably 
confined to a small circle. 

It was, therefore, agreeable to the wisdom of 
God that other persons should be introduced, 
who might be the means of rousing the atten- 
tion of the Jewish nation, and especially of per- 
sons of power and influence. Accordingly, we 
are informed that " a star appeared in the 
East," a luminous body having the appearance 
of a star, was seen by " wise men " — magis — 
and according to the divine intimation made to 



" The Birth of the Messiah." 17 

the " inagians," went before them, until it stood 
over the house where the young Child was. 

The wise men arrived at Jerusalem and 
made inquiry, saying, " Where is He that is 
born King of the Jews, for we have seen His 
star in the East, and have come to worship 
Him." 

The object of the wise men's visit was re- 
markable, and it touched a subject which was 
deeply interesting to the whole Jewish nation. 
The King of Judea — Herod — was naturally 
filled with fear and jealousy. The inhabitants 
of Jerusalem were alarmed with the forboding 
apprehension of the terrible evils which might 
arise from the inflamed passions of a tyrant, 
who was restrained neither by justice nor hu- 
manity. 

A great council was called, consisting of 
chief priests and scribes, and men of learn- 
ing, and Herod demanded of them — " Where 
the Messiah should be born." 

The reply was that the Messiah should be 
born at Bethlehem of Judea, and the prophecy 
of Micah was quoted — " And thou, Bethlehem, 
in the land of Judah, art not the least illus- 
trious among the cities of Judah; for out of 



18 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

thee shall come a ruler, who will govern my 
people of Israel." The wise men return to 
their own country, having seen the new-born 
King, and they take their place as among the 
first preachers of the new dispensation. 

Herod was so alarmed that he sought for 
means to arrest the progress of the New King- 
dom, and he issued a cruel edict to put to death 
all male children of two years and under, so 
as to include the new-born King; but he failed 
in his design. 

He Who sits upon the circle of the earth 
overruled his secret plot, and thwarted his sin- 
ful purpose, and the Infant King was placed 
out of his reach. 

What a message ! " Unto you is born this 
day — a Saviour ! " The world did not need 
an Adviser. The world did not ask for a " Re- 
former," a man who could change the outward 
relations of things. 

The world " wanted a Saviour." 

It is not an official title; it is not an image 
you could robe in scarlet, and bow down before 
on account of its mighty majesty, but a Sa- 
viour. " A Saviour is an angel with tears in 



"The Birth of the Messiah." 19 

His eyes, arms mighty as the lightnings of 
God; but a heart of tenderness.' 7 

It has in it all human nature, all divine na- 
ture, all the past of history, all the possibility 
of prophecy, all the mystery of the Apocalypse, 
the tenderness surpassing the love of women, 
the majesty humbling the pride of kings. 
" Unto you is born a Saviour." 

The heavenly music ceased. The Angelic 
Vision disappeared. The high estate and lowly 
condition of heaven's earth-born King were 
alike the marvel of men and the wonder of 
angels. 

The Nativity of Jesus should be joyfully 
commemorated with gifts of love and songs of 
joy, by young and old, in all lands, and in all 
ages. It is a song of " Great Joy to all people." 

Joy to the poor, because the new-born King 
came to make them rich; joy to the rich, for 
He came to make them richer still; joy to the 
simple, because He came to make them wise 
unto salvation ; joy to the wise, for He came to 
give them true wisdom; joy to the mourning 
and the sorrowing ones, because lie came to 
comfort and to bind up their broken hearts. 
Joy! Great joy! 



20 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Let us rejoice that the flood of joy which 
flowed from the manger' of Bethlehem is wide 
enough to encompass the earth with its glory, 
rich enough to bless the race with its mercy, 
and deep enough to roll on through all time, 
and over boundless eternity. 



"Childhood and Youth of Jesus." 21 



CHAPTER III. 

" THE CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH OF JESUS IN 
NAZARETH." 

O childhood ! Most ch arming age ! Fair- 
est of all ages! Age of innocence and purity! 
When Herod was dead, Joseph brought back 
Mary and the Child Jesus from Egypt, whither 
they had gone for refuge, and they went to 
Nazareth, in Galilee, to make their home. 

It was there that Jesus lived until the com- 
mencement of His public ministry. " The 
Child grew, and waxed strong, full of wisdom ; 
and the grace of God was in Him." 

Is it not marvelous that He Who, filled with 
wisdom as God, yet subjecting Himself to the 
condition of humanity, grows in wisdom and in 
grace, according as He grows in age, awaiting 
the time when, as a full-grown man, He may 
manifest to the world the treasures of knowl- 
edge and wisdom which are in Him ! 

The boyhood life of Jesus is of special and 



22 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

peculiar interest to the world. In many re- 
spects the young Galilean^must have been much 
like other boys of his day and age. He pos- 
sessed the buoyant spirit of boyhood life. He 
loved the society of his fellows. 

He had a home congenial to those natural in- 
clinations. Nazareth was the flower of Pal- 
estine. Of all the Galilean towns it is said to 
have been the most lovely for situation, and 
most to be desired as a retired and attractive 
home. 

It was beautiful and romantic beyond de- 
scription. It was regarded in springtime as a 
princely paradise, because of its great number 
and variety of beautiful flowers. Everything 
about the place looked indescribably bright and 
soft. Doves murmured in the trees; and all 
nature seemed aglow with beauty. 

Its picturesque streets were terraces on the 
hill-slopes, which overlooked the fertile plains 
and flowery vales beneath. It was a mountain 
village, with pure air and sunshine free. It 
was in this little town of Nazareth, where the 
Son of Man and the Son of God, — the Saviour 
of Mankind, spent nearly thirty years of His 
earthly life. It was, in fact, His home, His na- 



" Childhood and Youth of Jesus." 23 

live village for all but three years of His life 
on earth; the village which lent its then igno- 
minious name to the scornful title written upon 
His Cross; the village from which He did not 
disdain to draw His appellation when He 
spake in vision to the persecuting Saul: 

" I am Jesus of Nazareth Whom thou per- 
secutest." 

The Father made no mistake in the order- 
ing^ of Providence which sent His Son to this 
quiet and beautiful little city to be reared 
among its lofty and graceful mountains and 
liberty-loving people. 

Among these hills, in these valleys, and on 
these streets, He spent the years of His boyhood 
life. In this humble, though happy home, 
drinking in the purity and freedom of its 
mountain air, this true-hearted and generous 
Child of Heaven, quick in intellect, vivid in 
imagination, and gifted in all the noble char- 
noreristics of youthful life, developed into per- 
fect manhood, the wonderful Nazarene. 

As to the manner of life during those thirty 
years, history is almost barren of recorded 
facts, and must, therefore, be largely conjec- 
tural. The Gospels simply say that " He grew 



24 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, 
and the grace of God was upon Him." He grew 
as other children grew, only in a childhood of 
stainless and sinless beauty — " as the flower of 
roses in the spring of the year, and as lilies 
by the waters." 

There is, then, for the most part a deep si- 
lence in the Evangelists respecting this period ; 
but what eloquence in their silence ? 

We may suppose that a large proportion of 
these childhood days were given to His intel- 
lectual and moral development. 

For, strange as it may seem to us, we must 
remember that Jesus passed through all the 
stages, and was subject to all the necessities of 
human life. Hence His deep sympathy and in- 
terest in childhood and youth. He was purely 
a human being. 

Evil alone had no seed, and consequently no 
growth in the spotless nature of the young 
Nazarene. The innocence of infancy was never 
lost by Him. He sanctified all the periods of 
human life through which He passed. He 
lived without sin, in the perfect development 
of all the Christian graces which He afterwards 
inculcated by a sinless life. 



11 Childhood and Youth of Jesus." 25 

He was humanity's ideal from the cradle to 
the Cross. His human life was a perfect re- 
flex of the Divine character. 

His heart was the most sacred temple of the 
Holy Ghost, which was given Him without 
measure. His soul was a divine mirror which 
gave back to earth and heaven all of their im- 
parted grace, and its own innate glory. He 
continued increasing in wisdom as He grew in 
stature, and waxed strong in spirit as He in- 
creased in favor, both with God and man. So 
that at twelve years of age He was found in the 
temple conversing with the learned doctors of 
the law. 

Both His questions and His answers aston- 
ished beyond measure the astute and learned 
rabbis. It was evident that He had not taken 
His seat in the synagogue at Nazareth in vain. 

Neither had the young Nazarene studied the 
Scriptures for naught. 

He had stored away for future use all the 
valuable lessons learned in God's holy sanc- 
tuary, until His whole existence, at this age, 
was purely and spiritually religions. 

This marvelous boy also studied nature. 
His constant allusions to, and striking illus- 



26 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

trations from natural things, in the discourse 
of His after-life, shows most conclusively that 
He had been a close and successful student of 
nature's arena. 

But whatever He may have gathered from 
natural and human sources, He was also the 
pupil of heaven. His richest lessons came di- 
rectly from the Father, who willingly be- 
stowed wisdom without measure upon His Di- 
vine Son, Whose will was completely lost in the 
Divine will. The young Xazarene had a meek 
and meditative soul, vast in its youthful ex- 
pansions, and infinite in its continued devel- 
opment. He also had a lofty soul which roy- 
alty could not dazzle; an humble soul Avhich 
honors could not trouble ; a pure soul which 
knew no vexation, and a noble soul which 
walked calmly alike through the joys and sor- 
rows of life. 

Being perfectly conscious of His own supe- 
riority, He journeyed on through this world 
spreading sunshine and blessing. 

In His boyhood days, Jesus was simply 
learning how to live, that He might afterward, 
both by precept and example, teach others the 
same great lesson. The real victories of life 



11 Childhood and Youth of Jesus." 27 

are gained in our apprenticeship at learning 
how to live. 

The boy Jesus lived right. His manners 
were always sweet and attractive. His de- 
meanor was ever generous and captivating, and 
He walked at all times conscious of the Divine; 
presence. 

The Father's grace ever distilled gently and 
softly upon His Son, like the falling dew or the 
morning light. 

This youth of Nazareth not only taught us 
how to live, but taught us how to love and labor. 
Just as He was the only perfect life, so His was 
the only perfect love and joyous service the 
world has ever known. He was absolutely per- 
fect in character, and infinitely perfect in de- 
gree. 

He loved with purest and deepest devotion 
those whose thoughts, purposes and hopes were 
kindred to His own. 

He not only loved, but He both sanctioned 
and sanctified manual labor. He was called the 
" Carpenter's Son." He learned this humble 
trade, and made it the honorable means of His 
support for years. He recognized in labor the 
girdle of manliness and the salt of life. 



28 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

In His example He showed what a noble and 
manly thing it is to work, even where idleness 
is the stamp of aristocracy. He was perfectly 
content to labor for others, when He had no- 
where to lay His own sacred and weary head. 

There is a unique charm in the vein of self- 
denial which ran through the entire life of 
Jesus of Nazareth. 

There is a part in the life of Jesus which 
may be designated as the " Silent Chapter." 
1 1 is from the twelfth to the thirtieth year. We 
are told that from the time that Jesus and His 
parents returned from the " Passover " at Je- 
rusalem, when He was twelve years of age, He 
gave Himself to the study of the law, and to 
manual labor, till He arrived at the age of 
thirty. 

About eighteen years then passed away with 
no record of His words of wisdom, or deeds of 
daring. Not a footprint is left on the sands 
of time to mark definitely any of His mys- 
terious journey ings. 

We only know that, during this long period 
of His life, it was His custom to teach in the 
synagogue on the Sabbath day, and continued 
to increase in wisdom and stature, as He grew 



" Childhood and Youth of Jesus." 29 

in favor with God and Man. During this 
voiceless period, the silent Nazarene must have 
astonished the multitudes with the depth of 
His constantly increasing wisdom. 

During these solitary vigils of the young 
Galilean, He became more and more conver- 
sant with the loftiest conceptions of Israel's 
seers, who had been so richly endowed through 
the channels of Divine inspiration. The 
learned and eloquent young Nazarene became 
eminently qualified to instruct, and continued 
to teach the people in the synagogue at Naza- 
reth. 

Those who listened to His words were among 
the most highly favored auditors ever assem- 
bled in the world. For there was grandeur and 
harmony in the sublime truths He uttered. 

There was life in the thought, music in the 
voice, and melody in the soul of the wonderful 
speaker. Like the gentle breezes which swept 
the eolian harp of the royal prophet, the har- 
monious breathings of a more sublime inspira- 
tion, kissed the melodious chords of a sweeter 
harp, struck by the fingers of David's Eoyal 
Son. 

The sacred truths had never before been ex- 



30 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

pressed with such childlike simplicity and in- 
finite wisdom. Eeligion had never before been 
brought with such authority so near to the 
every-day life of the world. We love to con- 
template the private life of the silent Xaza- 
rene during those voiceless years of His sinless 
solitude. Here we find an exhaustless foun- 
tain of sacred lore. 

The heart of Jesus was full of grace, a soul 
replete with grandeur, and a destiny to be 
crowned with infinite glory. 

Never have men seen so many perfections 
blended in any other character. Never will the 
world witness such grace and grandeur united 
in mortal man. Jesus was the masterpiece of 
humanity, the wonder of ages, and the perfect 
ideal of heaven. 

The silent hours of this secluded and solitary 
life are full of precious lessons, overflowing 
with consolation and encouragement to the 
apparently insignificant and obscure earth. 

These lessons teach us that prominent action, 
public service and brilliant success are not es- 
sential to true and noble living. 

They also teach" us that the lot of those who 
spend their years in private life, unhonored and 



" Childhood and Youth of Jesus." 31 

unsung in the public arena, is the safest and 
happiest lot after all. 

All these silent and sinless years of Jesus 
of Nazareth were spent in toil, submission, 
and obscurity; in contentment, humility, and 
prayer, in order that He might prepare Him- 
self well for life's great mission, and leave an 
example worthy of imitation in all ages to 
come. 

It was during these private years, in the 
midst of evil associations and unhallowed sur- 
roundings, that the spotless Son of God devel- 
oped that perfect representative character for 
the world's study. It was at this time and 
under these circumstances that He kept the 
law perfectly, and thus taught by example 
what He afterward taught by precept — how to 
live a life wholly consecrated to the service of 
God. 

Jesus, in His private life, was the Moral 
Hero of the world. Moral excellency always 
adorned His matchless character. And His 
laws were all recommended by His own ex- 
ample, before they were enforced by His sov- 
ereign authority. So ended the boyhood days 
and private life of Jesus of Nazareth. 



32 The Life of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTEK IV. 



" THE APPEARANCE OF THE MESSIAH.' 



The time at length arrived when the Saviour 
should manifest Himself to men and com- 
mence His glorious work of redemption. 

His precursor had already appeared, and 
his voice had been heard in the wilderness. 
All the prophets who had foretold Christ's com- 
ing had, indeed, been His precursors, never- 
theless there was a last prophet, the greatest 
of all the prophets, John the Baptist, who 
came preparing the " way of the Lord." 

" There shall be heard," said Isaiah, " the 
voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare 
ye the way of the Lord; make straight the 
paths of our God. Every valley shall be ex- 
alted, and every mountain and hill shall be 
made low, and the crooked shall become 
straight, and the rough ways plain." 

" In those days came John the Baptist." As 



" The Appearance of the Messiah." 33 

if all the movements were continuous in the 
drama, without a break, as if there were no past 
tense, as if we lived in a perpetual present, 
and all history were a continuous breathing, 
a perpetual outgo of the Divine purpose and 
will. We have broken up our grammar so that 
we now have the present, the past, the plu- 
perfect, and the future; but there is another 
grammar in which there is but one mood, and 
one tense, and it is Christ's purpose to draw us 
up into His own thinking, until all history and 
all development, the whole sweep and current 
of things, shall be to us a living indicative. 

John the Baptist — a transient name ! When 
a man is so specialized, the meaning is that his 
mission is here and gone, whilst you are speak- 
ing about him, a breath, a shock, a voice, an 
echo, and then a vacancy. John himself said 
his mission was introductory, symbolical, a 
plunge, and all was over. John came preach- 
ing — a term but little understood in that age. 
There were few preachers known as such at 
that time. 

Preaching, in the New Testament, is a term 
which means heralding, going up and down 
from East to West, crying with a ringing voice 



34 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

— " Prepare ye the way. Prepare ! " He is 
the preacher who does so, who breathes through 
the herald's trumpet and startles the stagnant 
air with shattering blasts, and exclaims : " The 
King! The King!" 

The true preacher is the vox clamoris — 
" Prepare ! Look out ! Attention ! " The na- 
ture of John the Baptist was full of impetu- 
osity and fire. In his manifestation and 
agency, it is said that " he was like a burning 
torch " ; his public life was like an earthquake 
— the whole man was a sermon. 

He might well call himself " A voice — the 
voice of one crying in the wilderness, Pre- 
pare ye the way of the Lord." 

The theme of the ministry of John the Bap- 
tist was " Repentance." 

The cry of all widening civilization has been 
" Repent." We must not be startled at the 
word, as if it were a Church word and a Bible 
term only; it is a word you cannot do without 
in the history of secular civilization. The 
meaning of it is — Change your purpose, alter 
your mind, turn round, face about, you are on 
the wrong road. Return! 

He who corrects the thinking of his age, hav- 



"The Appearance of the Messiah." 35 

ing verified his own conclusions, comes forth 
and says to his age, " Kepent, you are wrong ; 
change your mind, alter your standpoint ! " 
When the word is taken in a religious sense, 
and invested with vital meanings, it still con- 
tinues the first signification, and enhances that 
signification with other meanings deeper and 
grander still. 

When a man repents of his sins, he knows 
the bitterness of inward sorrow, his heart weeps 
blood, his soul is afflicted with grievous distress 
on account of sin. 

Then the repentance expresses itself in an 
outward change of standing, altitude and rela- 
tionship, coming from an inward conviction 
wrought through infinite pain, and by minis- 
tries for which there are no words to express it. 

John's ministry, then, was not a very cheer- 
ful one, or a very popular one. It is much 
more pleasant to say to men, " I approve 
all your doings, I confirm your proceedings, 
t indorse your policies, and heaven's blessing 
shine upon you like a summer day." He who 
comes with a speech of that kind to the popu- 
lace will for the time being be the popular 
idol 



36 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

To come into the midst of a city and urging 
the people to " repent," is to excite the most 
desperate prejudice. The man whose little 
sermon is " Repent " sets himself against his 
age, and will for the time being be battered 
mercilessly by those whose moral tone he chal- 
lenges. But John kept at his work, and Jeru- 
salem and all Juclea, and the regions round 
about Jordan were strangely stirred. 

See in this case the power of one consecrated 
and burning heart. John was one, only one, 
and yet the whole valley of the river was shaken 
by his voice, and men flocked from every quar- 
ter to see and hear him. We here see the power 
of individual labor, that one solitary thinker, 
preacher, or reformer, may move a nation and 
an age. Everywhere do we read of the great 
results attending one man's ministry. One 
man is sometimes an army, one man is some- 
times a whole congregation. Despise not the 
two and the three when they are thoroughly 
consecrated, for they will increase the measure 
and the momentum of the message. 

John the Baptist preached repentance and 
the initiatory rite of baptism. We might ask 
the question, " What is baptism ? " Baptism is 



"The Appearance of the Messiah." 37 

the outward and visible sign of an inward and 
spiritual grace. It does not follow that you 
must have water in order to have baptism, but 
it you want the Atlantic Ocean, have it; if, 
how r ever, the drop of dew trembling on the rose- 
bud will suffice you, take it; but they are both 
nothing but ritualism, ceremonialism, and 
form, if you do not seize the inner meaning, 
the laver of blood and the baptism of fire. 

The one baptism of which all other baptisms 
were indications, types and symbols is the bap- 
tism of blood and the chrism of fire. 

John the Baptist, in answer to the questions 
of the priests and Levites who had been sent 
from Jerusalem to examine his claims, had al- 
ready declared that He was not the Messiah, 
nor Elijah, nor the Prophet, but that he was 
the person predicted by Isaiah who should 
make proclamation in the wilderness. 

Finding that the people were in suspense 
respecting his office and character, John ad- 
dressed them, saying: "I indoor] baptize with 
water, but One mightier than I comcth, Whose 
shoe-latchet I am not worthy to unloose. Tie 
will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 



38 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

fire." It is evident that no person who heard 
John could doubt but that the great personage 
to whom he alluded was the Messiah. John the 
Baptist was the precursor, the prophet, and the 
harbinger of Jesus Christ. 



" The Reception Given to Christ." 39 



CHAPTEE V. 



PEOPLE. 



John the Baptist required of his disciples 
a confession of sin, reformation in life, a hope 
of forgiveness, together with a belief that the 
Messiah was soon to make His appearance. 

But Jesus Christ had no sins to confess, no 
guilt to be forgiven. ISTor did He require to be 
informed that the Messiah would soon appear; 
for He knew that the high office belonged to 
Himself. 

Between Jesus, then, and all others who re- 
ceived John's baptism, there was no resem- 
blance in situation or character. 

The only circumstance in which there was 
any agreement was the external form of bap- 
tism. The baptism of Jesus may be consid- 
ered as a eonsoorntion to His high office as Mes- 
siah and Saviour of the World; for, immedi- 



40 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

ately after He was baptized He was acknowl- 
edged by Divine interposition; and after that 
event His ministry commenced. 

This baptism of Christ was a baptism of 
sympathy. Sympathy means feeling with, 
having a common emotion or passion, and He, 
the Saviour, was in all points made like unto 
His brethren, that in all points He might have 
a fellow-feeling, a kindred passion. 

That there might be no tone in all the scale 
of their life's utterance to which He could not 
respond, giving it a keener and a truer accent. 
Jesus Christ identified Himself with all the 
dispensations of Providence. He was the 
spirit of the Prophets, and now Pie came to the 
baptism of John. 

So He accepted that baptism, not because the 
word " repentance " was associated with it, 
but because it extended itself to righteous- 
ness. 

Again. — It was a baptism of Inauguration 
and a baptism of Approval. The Spirit de- 
scended. God the Father approved. 

" This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I am 
well pleased." Here is a new name introduced. 
It is a short name — it is the name of " Son." 



11 The Reception Given to Christ." 41 

" This is My Beloved Son." This new name 
marks a new epoch in human history. As we 
read the Bible we discover that the line of de- 
velopment moves in this form — " Man, Ser- 
vant, Prophet, Messenger, Son." Last of all 
He — Jehovah-God — sent His Son alfeo. It is 
infinitely exciting and interesting to see how 
these new words came into human speech. All 
the time it seemed as if something was want- 
ing. 

" Man " was a great name ; " Servant " a 
high office ; " Prophet " a marvelous function ; 
" Messenger " a high ministry ; but the name 
" Son " takes them all up and rounds them into 
completeness, and lights them with ineffable 
splendor. 

The Divine movement is always upward, the 
Divine progress is an ascension. Each word 
can be emphasized : " This is My beloved Son." 
God's image! God's equal! Jesus Christ is 
installed in office. His work began. We now 
bid farewell to John the Baptist, his work is 
completed, his last words arc spoken when he 
said : " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh 
away the sin of the world." The Christ, the 
Son of God, now enters the arena, and as the 



42 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

curtain is lifted upon the drama of His majes- 
tic life, we see Him led forth, by the Holy Ghost 
into the wilderness, there to fast for forty days 
and forty nights, and then to be tempted of the 
devil. The temptations of Our Lord were three 
in number. 

First. — " There was an attempt to induce 
Him to misapply His miraculous power for the 
relief of His own wants." 

Second. — " The second was for the purpose 
of gratifying vanity." 

Third — " To gratify His ambition." 

Satan has only three things to say, the 
tempter's program is short and shallow. Be- 
yond these three things he has never advanced 
one step. 

The same things presented to Christ were 
presented to our first parents in Eden. The 
first temptation was to the senses, an appeal to 
the appetites, an impulse given to that lower 
nature which man shares with all the animal 
creation. " If thou be the Son of God, com- 
mand that these stones be made bread." " If 
thou be the Son of God, cast Thyself down," 
and put God to the test. 

" All these things will I give Thee if Thou 



" The Reception Given to Christ." 43 

wilt fall down and worship me." Satan has no 
other temptation to offer. 

lie appeals to the dominant appetite, he asks 
man to make God his servant, in order that man 
may have good harvests, a fine income, plenty 
of good food, and an abundance of possessions. 

Satan has no other temptation to level at the 
human heart. He may vary the form, he may 
change the manner and expression; but this is 
substantially his program. Satan simply says: 
" Eat and live. Take plenty of bread and re- 
fuse to die." 

The answer which Christ made to Satan 
was: "Man shall not live by bread alone." 
How beautiful and comforting is the answer. 

Life is not a question of eating and drink- 
ing, but righteousness. The second temptation 
was answered by Christ in this manner : 

" Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." 
Again. — " Thou shalt worship the Lord thy 
God, and Him only shalt thou serve." 

Looking at the answers which Our Lord 
makes to the tempter, we find : First — " That 
they were written answers." Second — " They 
were simple and plain." Third — " They were 
authoritative." 



44 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Victorious over the concentrated temptation, 
triumphant in the fiery ordeal, the Saviour left 
the wilderness and returned to the fords of Jor- 
dan; and now begins His wonderful, busy, 
public life. 



" His Character and His Mission." 45 



CHAPTEK VI. 



The fourth Gospel was written by the beloved 
apostle, St. John. He wrote more especially 
to the Church, and hence from the Divine 
standpoint. John wrote his Gospel in his old 
age, and it contains many of the sweetest and 
most sacred accounts of his Lord's life and 
death. He loved to contemplate the Master as 
a Divine Being. He viewed Him almost con- 
stantly during his later years from this stand- 
point. He saw in Him the Alpha and Omega, 
the Incarnate Word, the Rabbi, the Messiah, 
the Son of God, the Father's gift of Love. 

After the fast and the temptation, Jesus goe3 
forth from the desert to preach the glorious 
Gospel. The Lord Jesus declares Himself to 
be the " Son of Man," but both His words and 
His works declare Him to be the " Son of 
God "as well. The Son of Man and the Son 
of God ! What a fascinating picture is that 



46 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

where the human and the Divine are so sweetly 
blended. What sweetness and what majesty 
sits upon His brow ! What power and inex- 
pressible tenderness is seen in His looks ! What 
a fountain of love flows from His heart ! The 
four Evangelists are most artless in describing 
the character of their historic hero. 

They recorded no bursts of admiration at the 
displays of His matchless power, or of His in- 
finite condescension. They simply chronicled 
His words and works without approval or ap- 
plause; and thus they most successfully set 
forth His glorious character, tell of His marvel- 
ous nature, and gave the world its greatest 
wonder and richest blessing, the Christ of the 
Gospels. 

History nowhere records a more perfectly 
human, or a more genuinely divine character, 
than these Gospels give to Jesus Christ. 

How humanity and divinity were harmonized. 
" The Word was made flesh and dwelt among 
us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the 
only begotten of the Father, full of grace and 
truth." 

The God-Man walked forth in His humanity 
amongst men, and they readily recognized His 



" His Character and His Mission." 47 

divinity. The Representative of heaven and 
earth was seen in all the manifestations of His 
human weakness and divine power. In the Re- 
deemer earthly sorrow was blended with heav- 
enly wisdom, and His eternal glory was blended 
in His compassionate love for sinful man. 

The commencement of Christ's ministry is 
thus described by St. Matthew, Chapter 4th, 
23-25 : " And Jesus went about all Galilee, 
teaching in their synagogues, and preaching 
the Gospel of the Kingdom, and healing all 
manner of diseases among the people. And 
His fame went throughout all Syria ; and they 
brought unto Him all sick people that were 
taken with divers diseases, and those which 
were possessed with devils, and those which 
were lunatic, and those which had the palsy; 
and He healed them. And there followed 
Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, 
and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and 
from Judea, and from beyond Jordan." 

What a blessed beginning of the most blessed 
of all ministries was this! He came to bless 
our world, and here we see how He entered 
upon His work. Observe, one of the first things 
He did after thus beginning His ministry was 



48 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

to gather His disciples round Him. The first 
two that we find named among His disciples 
are John and Andrew. 

John and Andrew had been disciples of John 
the Baptist. Their master pointed them to 
Jesus, and said : " Behold the Lamb of God, 
which taketk away the sin of the world." 
When they heard this they followed Jesus, and 
became His disciples. "When Andrew met with 
his brother Simon Peter, he said unto him: 
"We have found the Messiah, the Christ." 
And he brought him to Jesus. 

After this we are told that " Jesus findeth 
Philip, and saith unto him, Follow Me." He 
obeyed the call at once, and became one of the 
greatest of the apostles of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

Then Nathaniel and Matthew joined the 
company of the disciples and followed the 
Master. So it was with the others. Of those 
He chose twelve, whom He set apart for a spe* 
cial work in the early Church. Followed by 
these apostles, He went through the towns and 
cities, preaching the glad tidings and scat- 
tering blessings as He wont. The people fol- 
lowed Him in crowds. Never had they seen 



" His Character and His Mission." 49 

in any man so much sweetness and tenderness, 
so much power and wisdom. Every word re- 
vealed an unheard-of love for men. 

Every act displayed His infinite goodness. 
When Nathaniel was invited by Philip to 
" Come and see " the Saviour, we heard Him 
expressing a prejudice against a place — " Can 
any good thing come out of Nazareth % " Philip 
was an apt scholar, and he said : " Come and 
see." That question of Nathaniel's is often 
repeated in this age, and the one sufficient an- 
swer — almost the only possible answer is now, 
as it was then, " Come and see." That it 
meant " Come and see One Who speaks as never 
man spoke ; come and see One Who, though He 
be but a carpenter's son of Nazareth, yet He is 
the greatest of all men who have ever appeared 
in the earth." 

" Come and see One from Whom there seems 
to breathe forth the irresistible charm of a 
sinless purity, the unapproachable beauty of a 
divine life." " Come and see," said Philip, 
convinced in his simple, faithful heart that to 
see Jesus was to know Him, and to adore Him. 
In this sense, indeed, we can say " Come and 
see " no longer, for since the blue heavens 



So The Life of Jesus Christ. 

closed on the visions which were given to Paul, 
and Stephen, Philip and Nathaniel, His 
earthly form has been visible no more. 

But there is another sense, no less powerful 
for conviction, in which it still suffices to say, 
" Come and see." 

Come and see a dying world revivified, a 
decrepit world regenerated, and an aged world 
rejuvenescent. Come and see the darkness il- 
luminated, the despair dispelled. Come and 
see tenderness brought into the cell of the im- 
prisoned felon, and liberty to the fettered slave. 
Come and see hospitals and orphanages rising 
in their permanent mercy beside the crumbling 
ruins of colossal amphitheatres which once 
reeked with human blood. Come and see the 
dens of evil and tyranny transformed into 
sweet and happy homes. Come and see defiant 
atheists turned into believing Christians, and 
rebels into obedient children. 

Ay, " Come and see " the majestic acts of 
one great drama continued through nineteen 
centuries, and as you see them all tending to 
one great development — as vou hear the voice 
of the Saviour calling " Follow Me," you join 
the pure and candid Nathaniel in saying: 



" His Character and His Mission." 51 

" Rabbi, Thou art the Son of God. Thou art 
the King of Israel." 

Jesus, as He saw Nathaniel coming to Him, 
recognized that the seal of God was upon His 
forehead, and said unto him, " Behold a true 
Israelite, in whom guile is not." 

We scarcely hear of Nathaniel again. He 
seems to have been one of those calm, retiring, 
contemplative souls, whose sphere of existence 
lies not here, but " where beyond these voices, 
there is peace." 



52 The Life of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER VII. 

AND NICODEMUS," OR 
BY NIGHT/'' 

Nicodemus is an interesting character, and 
he impresses ns favorably at every point. 
Among the rulers, scribes, Pharisees and 
wealthy members of the Sanhedrin, Christ 
found believers and followers. The earliest 
and most remarkable of these was Nicoderuus, 
a rich man, a ruler, a Pharisee, and a member 
of the Sanhedrin. There is a certain timidity 
observable in all which the Gospels tells us 
about Nlcodemus; a timidity which could not 
be wholly overcome even by his honest desire 
to befriend and acknowledge One whom he 
knew to be a Prophet, even if he did not at 
once recognize in Him the promised Messiah. 

Such was the rabbi who, with that mingled 
candor and fear of man which characterize all 
that we know of him, came indeed to Jesus, 
but came cautiously by night. He was anxious 



" Christ and Nicodemus." 53 

to know more of this young Galilean prophet 
whom he was too honest not to recognize as a 
Teacher come from God; but he thought him- 
self too prominent a person among his sect to 
compromise his dignity, and possibly his safety 
by visiting Him in public. 

Although he is alluded to in only a few 
touches, because of that high teaching which 
Jesus vouchsafed to him, yet the impression 
left upon us by his individuality is inimitably 
distinct, and wholly beyond the range of in- 
vention. 

His very first remark shows the indirect 
character of his mind — his way of suggesting 
rather than stating what he wished — the half- 
patronizing desire to ask, yet the half-shrinking 
reluctance to frame his question — the admis- 
sion that Jesus had come " from God," yet the 
hesitating implication that it was only as " a 
teacher," and the suppressed inquiry, " What 
must I do ? " 

Our Lord saw deep into his heart, and 
avoided all formalities or discussion of pre- 
liminaries, startles him at one with the solemn, 
uncompromising address, " Verily, verily, T 
say unto thee, except a man be born again (or 



54 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

from above) he cannot see the Kingdom of 
God." 

" My disciple must be Mine in heart and soul, 
or he is not a disciple at all; the question is 
not of doing or not doing, but of being." That 
answer startled Nicodemus into deep earnest- 
ness; but like the Jews, he either could not, or 
would not, grasp its full significance. He pre- 
fers to play, with a kind of querulous surprise, 
about the mere literal meaning of the words 
which he chooses to interpret in the first physi- 
cal and unintelligible sense. 

Mere shifting like this, Jesus did not pause 
to notice ; He only sheds a fresh ray of light on 
the reiteration of his former warning. 

He spoke, not of the fleshly birth, but of that 
spiritual regeneration of which no man could 
predict the course or method, any more than 
they could tell the course of the night breeze 
that rose and fell and whispered fitfully out- 
side the little tabernacle where they sat, but 
which must be a birth by water and by the 
spirit — a purification, that is, and a renewal — 
an outward symbol and an inward grace — a 
death unto sin and a new birth unto righteous- 
ness, 



11 Christ and Nicodemus." 55 

ISTicodemus could only answer by an expres- 
sion of incredulous amazement. A Gentile 
might need, as it were, a new birth when ad- 
mitted into the Jewish communion; but he — 
a son of Abraham, a rabbi, a zealous keeper of 
the law — could he need that new birth? How 
could it be ? 

" Art thou the teacher of Israel % " asked Our 
Lord, " and knowest not these things ? " Art 
thou the third member of the Sanhedrin, the 
wise men, and yet knowest not the earliest, 
simplest lesson of the initiation into the king- 
dom of heaven ? If thy knowledge be thus 
carnal, thus limited — if thou stumblest on the 
threshold, how canst thou understand those 
deeper truths which He only who came down 
from heaven can make known? 

The question was half sorowful, half re- 
proachful; but He proceeded to reveal to this 
Master in Israel things greater and stranger 
than these ; even the salvation of man rendered 
possible by the sufferings and exaltation of the 
Son of Man; the love of God manifested in 
sending His only begotten Son, not to judge, 
but to save; the deliverance of all through 
faith in Him; the condemnation which must 



56 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

fall on those who wilfully reject the truths He 
came to teach. These were the mysteries of the 
kingdom of heaven — truths once undreamed of, 
but fully revealed. 

It is in this conversation with 2v"icodemus 
that we get the first glimpse of the God-Man's 
method of teaching. How simple, how inter- 
esting, and how comprehensive it is. Probably 
Christ never talked so grandly as upon this 
occasion ; He kept to the one point in the hear- 
ing of one man, and made that one night the 
most memorable period in the man's recollec- 
tion. 

Nicodemus had not a thousand messages to 
take home; Jesus saw the kind of man with 
whom He had to deal, and, like a wise master- 
builder, He dealt with it according to its qual- 
ity and scope. 

It is possible to occupy a very high nominal 
position in the Church, and to know nothing 
about the purpose of the Master. 

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a ruler of the 
Jews, a master in Israel, and yet he knew noth- 
ing about this nobler and diviner life. 

We give Nicodemus credit for going to Jesus 
in person to inquire concerning the kingdom, 



" Christ and Nicodemus." 57 

and we commend him for his wise selection of 
time. " He went in the night-time " — at a 
time when it was likely that there would be the 
least interruption. 

. Some critics have blamed him for going at 
such a time, and have looked upon him as a 
coward; but we take the nobler and more hon- 
orable view of the visit, and esteem him for his 
earnestness in seeking for the truth. Listen to 
the salutation which Nicodemus offered when 
he approached the Saviour of Men. 

" Rabbi, we know that Thou art a Teacher 
come from God; for no man can do these mir- 
acles that Thou doest, except God be with him." 

It is possible to go direct to Christ Himself 
on the wrong business. Jesus Christ does not 
want to talk about miracles. 

The miracles are but the dust of His feet. 
He wants to talk upon a greater subject. Jesus 
says : " If you will begin at the beginning, I 
will remain with you until you are a scholar in 
My school ; if you will come and ask about in- 
ward, spiritual and vital subjects, I will tarry 
with you till the rising of the sun." 

Jesus answered and said unto him: " Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born 



58 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
Blessed salvation! Sweeter than a woman's 
love, and more tender than a mother's com- 
passion, wiser than all sages in understanding 
human nature. The subject which Nicodemus 
introduced was miracles; the subject which 
Jesus Christ introduced was regeneration of 
the heart. 

Nicodemus exclaimed : " How can a man be 
born when he is old ? " Nicodemus was a liter- 
alist, and he was startled by the word " born." 
" How can these things be % " Jesus answered : 
" The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is 
every one that is born of the Spirit." Jesus 
Christ thus gives Nature an illustrative func- 
tion; all its beauty, its splendor, its force, is to 
teach something beyond itself; there is a voice 
in the wind other than that which smites the 
ear ; beyond the common fragrance of the flow- 
ers there is an odor which reaches the soul ; the 
glitter of the starlight comes from a fire veiled 
from all eyes. Jesus Christ thus found a com- 
mon law in nature and grace ; the Spirit is the 
same, whether it directs the course of the wind 



" Christ and Nicodemus." 59 

or in renewing the springs of the heart, the 
earth to the spiritual mind is but a lower 
heaven. 

Though the mystery of the "New Birth" 
may remain unexplained, yet it is a blessed 
truth — both birth and life are mysterious. 

The discourse with JSTicodemus occupies 
twenty-one verses, and touches upon such sub- 
jects as the work of the Holy Spirit, the lifting 
up of the Son of Man, Faith in the Son of God, 
Divine Love, Salvation, and Eternal Life. Is 
there anything suggestive in the circumstance 
that Nicodemus came to Jesus Christ by night ? 
Oh ! the night ! 

How many troubled doubters and inquir- 
ers are weary of its darkness ! 

Those who come by night should be encour- 
aged. God Himself made the night, as well 
as the day ; the moon as well as the sun. 

We know little more of Nicodemus, but what 
we do know is sufficient. Where do we last find 
him ? We find him at the Cross and standing 
in the light. He has found his way through 
the night to the morning, from the miracles to 
the Cross, a true disciple. 



6o The Life of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTEE VIII. 

" THE HEALING POOLS AT BETHESDA." 

" Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep-market a 
pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, 
having five porches. 

" In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of 
blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the 
waters." — John, v., ch. 2-3. 

At what feast of the Jews this special mir- 
acle was wrought it is difficult to say ; and it is 
not of very material moment that we should 
be able to determine. The feast is called " a 
feast of the Jews/' that is, it was peculiar to 
the Jews. 

The moment, however, that Jesus touched it 
by His presence, that moment it was gone; for 
He was the end of all types; He was the sub- 
stance of all shadows ; and just as the shades of 
night depart when the sun rises above the hori- 
zon, so the feasts and fasts and institutions of 
the Jews passed away the moment that the Sun 
of Righteousness shone upon them. 



" The Healing Pools at Bethesda." 61 

Bethesda, literally translated, means the 
house of mercy. The place is still tradition- 
ally pointed out, and in most books on Pales- 
tine a certain pool or deep well is alluded to as 
the pool of Bethesda ; but prominent writers on 
Biblical research state that it is not positively 
known where it was. Nor does it much matter. 
The local is the circumstantial and the tran- 
sient; the moral and the spiritual lessons of 
Bethesda endure now and forever. 

The pool, it seems, was either miraculously 
impregnated with medicinal virtue after an 
angel had stirred it, or it was permanently en- 
dued with that virtue, so that every one that 
stepped into it after it had been stirred by the 
angel was healed of whatever disease he had. 

It appears that at this pool, whether its vir- 
tues were permanently healing or temporarily 
so, there were multitudes of the halt, the lame, 
and the impotent. 

In this crowd that surrounded the pool of 
Behesda we have a very suggestive fact. It is 
this : " Men who have lost the health of the 
body that is day by day falling to dust will go 
to the ends of the earth, if peradventure they 
may obtain its recovery ; but persons who know 



62 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

they have lost the health of their soul are not 
as eager to enter the true and lasting Beth- 
esdas, the sanctuaries of God and the houses of 
prayer, into which not a created angel, but the 
Angel of the Covenant statedly descends, and 
heals the broken spirit, binds up the bleeding 
heart, gives beauty for ashes, and the opening 
of the eyes of them that are blind. Hence it 
happens that man needs not to be awakened to 
a sense of the danger of a bodily disease; but 
in every case man needs to be awakened to a 
sense of his spiritual disease. s 

One invalid went to the earthly Bethesda 
who had labored under his disease thirty-eight 
years — not who had been there thirty-eight 
years, as some have construed it. 

This invalid was despised or jostled aside by 
the crowds. It is a strange fact, that a certain 
amount of misfortune does make men sympa- 
thize with each other; but when it becomes 
rapid, terrible, and universal, it creates an in- 
tense selfishness in all, so that each is ready to 
tread down his brother in order to find a rescue 
and deliverance for himself. 

This poor man had been so treated ; the 
greatest sufferer had faced the worst at man's 



(i The Healing Pools at Bethesda." 63 

hands. On him, however, Jesus cast His eye. 
The deepest affliction upon earth has ever the 
readiest response in heaven. Jesus cast the eye 
of pity, not upon the selfish crowd who had few 
ailments, hut first on the greatest sufferer, and 
to the sufferer He showed the greatest mercy. 

Our Lord, casting His eye upon the sufferer, 
asked him the question, " Wilt thou he made 
whole ? " This seems a superfluous question. 
Why, there could he no douht that the poor 
man w r ould he made whole, for he had come on 
purpose, and had waited many a weary day to 
be so. And yet Christ never spoke a super- 
fluous word, nor did a superfluous deed. 

There was a reason in all He said, and a 
necessity for all He did. And no douht the 
question that lie put here was meant to quicken 
hopes that were dead in the poor sufferer's 
bosom; to revive withered feelings, affections 
and desires; and to create in the desponding 
man's soul a presentiment of approaching cure, 
and cast over it the first rays of that sunshine 
into which Christ was soon to introduce him. 
The sick man, roused by this question — and 
nothing so delights and revives a sufferer as a 
word of sympathy — instantly answered, " I 



64 The Life of Jesus Christ. 



have no man near me to put me into the pool, 
but when I am going another steppeth down be- 
fore me." 

As if he had said, " Most gladly would I be 
cured; I have been looking for it; but I have 
the misfortune to be so thoroughly impotent 
that I am not able to reach the pool, and others, 
abler and stronger, with greater patronage or 
with greater aid, rush in first, and are healed." 
The man felt that there was no healing outside 
Bethesda, and that if he could not be lifted into 
it, he could not be healed, just as many persons 
think there is no virtue extrinsic to the ordi- 
nances, but the Lord of the ordinance can work 
above it, without it, and beyond it. 

Now, if Jesus had been a mere man, He 
would have lifted the impotent person from the 
spot he had so long and hopelessly held, and 
would have placed him in the pool of Bethesda ! 
but He did not do so. He left Bethesda to those 
who worshiped it as the whole spring of their 
recovery, and cured the impotent man by that 
word which was more healing than all Beth- 
esda's waters. 

Jesus said unto the man : " Arise, take up 
thy bed, and walk." It is well that Christ is 



" The Healing Pools at Bethesda." 65 

thus Sovereign; it is glorious to Him, and it 
is also good for us. I need scarcely explain 
that the bed was a sort of couch on which the 
man lay, and which could be folded like a tent, 
and carried away by him. 

If this man, when Christ said to him, 
" Arise, take up thy bed and walk," had been 
a modern theologian, he would first have in- 
troduced the question that man had no strength 
of his own, and that unless He would give him 
strength it was absurd to attempt to obey the 
order that Christ had issued. 

Such reasoning is always perilous, very often 
mistaken. The man, however, reasoned none, 
but instantly obeyed the bidding of his Lord; 
and the moment he made the effort, that mo- 
ment divine strength enabled him to succeed. 

The Jews, when they saw this cure, instantly 
objected to the man on the ground that he was 
carrying his couch upon the Sabbath day, urg- 
ing that it was not lawful to do so. It was not 
zeal for the Sabbath that animated them, but 
hatred to Him Who had wrought the miracle. 
The Jews were watching to discover reasons 
for crucifying the Lord of life and glory. 
5 



66 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Whatever He did, however beautiful, ben? 
eficent and good, was tortured and construed 
by them into a reason for exciting popular feel- 
ing against the Redeemer. 

The man's answer to the Jews who thus cav- 
illed at him was truly admirable. It was the 
very essence of that rarest sense, common sense. 
" The man, I know not who he was, that made 
me whole, the same said unto me, Take up thy 
bed and walk." 

He argued : " The love, the pity, the power 
that healed me surely would not have bade me 
do that which is in itself sinful, or to violate 
the sanctity of the Sabbath day." As if he had 
said : " The power that has been put forth is to 
me evidence that it was the Lord of the Sab- 
bath that raised me from my weakness and re- 
stored me to life." 

We gather fiom the context that the poor 
man went immediately to the temple. How 
beautiful is this trait in his character ! He sees 
Divinity in his cure; recognizes the Lord of 
the Temple in the restoration he has experi- 
enced ; and instinctively, after reaping so gra- 
cious a blessing, he goes to that holy place, that 
there he may openly, before the world, render 



" The Healing Pools at Bethesda." 67 

praise and thanksgiving to Him Who had com- 
passion on him and delivered him. 

The world is an hospital, the whole earth 
is an asylum. In the midst of life we are in 
death; our life at best is but frailty. Life is 
a perpetual crisis. " Blessed is that servant 
who shall be found when his Lord cometh 
waiting and watching, and working." The sick 
and impotent multitude were " waiting for the 
moving of the waters." Every life has some 
opportunity given to it. Every one of us has 
a door opened, we have seen the index-finger 
lifted up, we have beheld an angel beckoning. 

" For the angel went down at a certain season 
into the pool." O beautiful angel of mercy, 
and healing, and salvation ! Christ Jesus has 
all power. He speaks and it stands fast. He 
commands and the disease disappears. He 
breathes and the sun is dim. He breathes 
again, and the sun increases in lustre. He 
says: " Let there be light, and there is light." 

This picture has two sides, one dark, the 
other bright. On the one side we see what sin 
has done and is doing, what loneliness and suf- 
fering there is among the sons of men. 

On the other hand, we see whence cometh 



68 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

help, the light of hope and the hand of unfail- 
ing power. In the sick man waiting at the pool 
we see the one; in Christ, the Restorer, we see 
the other. 

" There is no name like Christ's for us. It 
is more imperial than Caesar's, more musical 
than Beethoven's, more eloquent than Cicero's. 
It throbs with all life. It weeps with all 
pathos. It groans with all pain. It stoops with 
all condescension. It breathes with all per- 
fume." " Who has such an eye to see our need, 
such a lip to kiss away our sorrow, such a hand 
to snatch us out of the fire, such a foot to 
trample our enemies, such a heart to embrace 
all our necessities ? " 



" The Miracles Performed. 69 



CHAPTEK IX. 

" THE MIRACLES PERFORMED BY JESUS CHRIST." 

There are three great expressions by which 
miracles are known. First, " A miracle, or a 
wonder ; second, " a sign " ; third, " a power." 
The first name is that of " a wonder." This 
presents the miracle in one of its aspects, but 
in its weakest and poorest aspect, and implies 
simply the impression which the performance 
of the miracle is to make upon the senses of 
him that sees it- 
It merely implies that, by the act just wit- 
nessed, wonder, awe, amazement is created; 
all that is designed in this character to do is to 
break the slumber of the senses, to disturb the 
continuity of apathy, and to rouse man to a 
perception of a presence greater than himself. 
Hence, the very result of the performance of a 
miracle is to arrest the attention, to awaken 
thought of those that are present, and in the 
midst of whom the miracle is done. 



70 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

The second name given to a miracle is a 
higher and more expressive one — " a sign." 
All signs are not miracles, but all miracles are 
signs. A sign means a substance. Wherever 
you say there is a sign, you imply that there is 
something that is signified. 

When, therefore, a miracle is performed, it 
is, at this point, a sign of the presence of God. 
As a wonder it startles; as a sign, it teaches; 
the one strikes, the other speaks; and hence, a 
miracle is not only startling to the senses, but 
it is significant and instructive to the mind. 
In other words, it not only creates awe, amaze- 
ment, arrest, but it conveys meaning and in- 
struction, the chiefest point of which is, that 
men here trace the finger, the footprints and 
the marks of Deity. 

The third name by which a miracle is known 
in Scripture is " a power." The word is some- 
times rendered " works," sometimes " mighty 
works," and sometimes it is rendered " pow- 
ers " ; and it is so called, because a miracle is 
the manifestation of power; not necessarily of 
a greater power than is already manifested in 
Creation, but the manifestation of that power 
in a new formula, in an unexpected shape, in 



" The Miracles Performed. 71 

a way which we have not seen it so manifested 
before, and which, therefore, is more com- 
pletely fitted to arrest the mind. 

" The Water Made Wine."— St. John's Gos- 
pel, second chapter and tenth verse. We read 
of the sense of wonder in the mind of the chief 
person at the feast. " And he saith, Every man 
at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and 
when men have well drunk, then that which is 
worse; but thou hast kept the good wine until 
now." 

" There is some mysterious change," he says ; 
" this is a new phenomena ; I am astonished, 
surprised ; something more than is usual is 
here." The " power " of the miracle was felt 
when that which was water blushed into wine, 
as the Lord looked upon it. 

The miracle was also " a sign," for it was so 
full a manifestation of the glory of Jesus, that 
it is said, " His disciples believed on Him." 
We have here the three characteristics of a 
miracle embodied in the account given by St. 
John. 

Now a miracle itself is not a mere action, or 
a mere operation of nature, and yet it need not 
imply any more power than is already put forth 



72 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

in creation. For instance, in casting a handful 
of wheat into the soil, and making it grow up 
till it produces two or three bushels, there is as 
much power of God manifested as there is in 
making a few loaves of bread grow into a few 
thousand. 

There is the same power exerted- in making 
a seed cast into the soil grow up into many 
seeds as there is in making one loaf grow into 
many loaves. The difference between what we 
call a natural thing and what God pronounces 
a miraculous thing is not so much the extent of 
power that is manifested as the manner of the 
manifestation of that power. Thus we read in 
the Epistle to the Romans that the invisible 
things of God " are clearly seen, being under- 
stood by the things that are made, even His 
eternal power and God-Head. 

So that all Creation, we are told, in its ac- 
tion, as clearly intimates and proves the power 
of God as any miracle, strictly and properly so 
called, could prove it. 

Then where is the difference, you ask, be- 
tween a miracle and the natural laws, as they 
are called, or operations of nature ? 

I answer, the difference arises from the new 



" The Miracles Performed. 73 

and strange formula, shape, mode, or manner 
in which that power is put forth. 

Another difference arises from the fact that 
the miracle of the seed cast into the earth grow- 
ing into many bushels is a miracle occurring 
every year, and witnessed by every individual 
upon earth; but the miracle of one loaf being 
multiplied into ten, twelve, or twenty, was a 
thing that occurred only once, and was wit- 
nessed by a few; and to that few only, and by 
their testimony to others, is that miracle ad- 
dressed. 

The water coming from the clouds, and de- 
scending from springs and rocks, proves abun- 
dantly the power of God. 

That the ocean should be a mighty cistern, 
that the sands and rocks of the earth should 
constitute so many filters, that the water should 
be constantly supplied through these for us to 
drink, that the steam which evaporates from the 
sea should shape itself into clouds, and meet- 
ing with cold currents of air, should become 
condensed, and fall in the shape of prolific and 
fertilizing showers; all this is an evidence of 
the power of God. 

But the " water turned into wine " is not 



74 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

the manifestation of a greater power, but it is 
the manifestation of the same jpower, relieving 
the monotony which has dulled the impressive- 
ness of the former ! lifting, as it were, the veil 
under which God works, enabling us to see, not 
dead laws which the philosopher sees, but a 
living hand put forth at the springs of nature, 
controlling, originating, and creating all. 
Thus, then, the water from the clouds, falling 
upon the soil, ascending the trunk of the vine, 
and ultimately issuing in grapes, and those 
grapes formed into wine, is one process, and in 
every stage of that process God's power is mani- 
fested ; and when God turns water into wine all 
that He does differently is to shorten the pro- 
cess. 

The ordinary process is that the water in the 
sea should rise into the cloud, then fall from 
the cloud in copious showers, give refreshment 
to the vine and fertility to the earth, develop 
itself in sap, in blossom, in grapes, in fermen- 
tation, in wine, — that is the long process; the 
short process is, the water tnring into wine at 
Christ's word ; but it is equally Christ in both ; 
it is equally Divine power in both, only wo have 
got so accustomed to the long process that we 



" The Miracles Performed. 75 

say it is the natural thing, and are so little ac- 
customed to the short process that the senses 
are startled and the mind is awakened. 

The difference is here, too — that in the one 
case we see a succession of continuous causes, 
and in the other we see the actor come forth 
Himself, lay aside the machinery by which He 
has acted heretofore, and in one word say: 
" Let this water be wine " ; and, recognizing its 
Creator and its God, it becomes so. 

A miracle is not a thing against or contrary 
to nature, but is a thing above and beyond what 
we call nature. 

It is an addition to a new and a nobler law 
to the law that previously was; it is not the 
destruction of any existing law, but it is super- 
adding to that law a more perfect and glorious 
one. 

Thus, when I raise my arm, the power of 
gravitation ought to make that arm instantly 
fall ; but when I keep that arm up it is not by 
the destruction of the law of gravitation, but it 
is the super-adding of a higher law, the great 
law of life. 

So, we can conceive that when Christ does a 
miracle, it is not the extinction of that which 



76 The Lite of Jesus Christ. 

is really a right law, but it is the bringing from 
heaven a nobler law, to be super-added to, and 
render more glorious the law that was. 

Let us look for a moment at the first miracle 
which Jesus performed in Cana of Galilee. 
His first miracle was not a miracle of tremen- 
dous power, but one of quiet and gentle bene- 
ficence. 

The Saviour's first miracle dawned in the 
form of a nuptial benediction upon a young 
couple, beginning the journey, and about to 
attempt the battle of life. He heightened do- 
mestic joys before He went forth to mitigate 
domestic sorrows. He began rejoicing with 
them that do rejoice, before He went on His 
pilgrimage to " Weep with them that weep." 

St. John says that " there was a marriage in 
Cana of Galilee," an incident which had oc- 
curred within a comparatively small circle, 
but destined to be felt in a much wider area. 

Jesus had chosen His disciples, and was 
present with them at the wedding. While the 
feast proceeded the wine seemed to fail. 
" They have no wine," said Mary, the Mother 
of Jesus. " Woman ! " he replied, " what have 
I to do with thee ? " The words at first sound 



" The Miracles Performed." 77 

harsh and severe by their seeming roughness 
and brevity. 

He does not call her " Mother," because, in 
circumstances such as these, she was His mother 
no longer ; but the address " Woman " was re- 
spectful, and was addressed to the queenliest 
and the gentlest of all women. And Mary, 
knowing Him, said to the servants, " Do what- 
ever He shall tell you." Now there were in the 
banqueting hall six large water-pots or vases, 
for the purification in use among the Jews. 
Jesus said : " Fill the water-pots with water." 
And when they were filled, He said : " Take, 
or draw out now, and bear to the governor of 
the feast." They were brought, and the gov- 
ernor having tasted, found them full of de- 
licious wine. 

Such was the first miracle wrought by Jesus, 
" changing water into wine." His disciples, 
who had followed Him, after this miracle be- 
lieved fully in Him, and the fame of the mir- 
acle spread abroad. The Gospel does not re- 
late the miracles of our Lord in regular succes- 
sion, and perhaps it does not record them all. 

It is interesting to observe how wonderfully 
a sense of the completeness of Christ's power 



78 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

had seized the people. That He had turned 
water into wine was proof enough to the noble- 
man that He could also turn disease into health. 

Before leaving this beautiful wedding-scene, 
and the miracle performed there, we observe that 
Christ's glory shone forth in it, — shone forth 
as the Lord of Creation, and as the Law-giver 
to His creatures ; but we inquire, What may be 
the issue of the exposition of this circumstance, 
that you shall admire His power, be charmed 
with His mercy, believe in His sacrifice, rest 
upon His intercession, and anticipate that day 
when the marriage festival shall not be that of 
a poor couple in Cana of Galilee, but when the 
Bridegroom shall be the Lord of Glory : and 
all redeemed saints shall constitute His chosen 
and beautiful bride, and the Marriage Supper 
of the Lamb shall come, and we too shall be 
among those who have made themselves ready ? 

Another miracle, namely, " The nobleman's 
son." A nobleman's son was sick. This noble 
man, it seems, was a person of great rank and 
dignity, but though high in rank, he shared in 
the common ills of life. Disease finds its way 
into every rank. The nobleman, though one 
of the greatest in the land, had a sick son, and 



" The Miracles Performed." 79 

so far was placed on a level with the poorest of 
the people. That sick son became his greatest 
mercy and blessing. If this nobleman's son 
had not been sick, then the father would never 
have found a Saviour. The nobleman having 
heard of the fame of Jesus, and of His miracu- 
lous power, " he besought Him that He would 
come down and heal his son, for he was at the 
point of death." 

Let us learn here a very practical lesson, 
namely, that where there is faith in the power, 
there may be something of dictation as to the 
method. The nobleman did not see that the 
power which could heal was independent of 
time and space. He needed to be taught this, 
and the lesson was given him under circum- 
stances which would save it from oblivion. 
" He went about doing good," says the Gospel, 
marking His path with blessings, consoling 
every sorrow, healing every disease and every 
infirmity; and these were the proofs of His 
divinity which He gave to men. 

The nobleman's prayer was " Come down 
ere my child die." Tic bo'ieved Jesus had 
power to heal, but he believed it was a limited 
power, that it was restricted to personal con- 



80 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

tact with the object. Jesus replied to him in 
what seemed to be a rebuke : " Except ye see 
signs and wonders ye will not believe." It is 
evident that the nobleman was driven to Christ 
by the sense, the foreboding sense, of the loss of 
his son, and not drawn to Christ by a percep- 
tion of the blessings that Christ had to give. 
Yet the Lord Jesus revived him. The noble- 
man was overwhelmed with a sense of the suf- 
fering of his son that he scarcely heard the re- 
buke. 

How true to human nature is this ! How 
like what we are ! He could scarcely listen to 
the Divine lesson, so mighty and strong within 
him was the human and the paternal sympathy. 

Herein we are taught the secret of perse- 
vering prayer. The nobleman continued to cry 
for relief, he prayed fervently, prayed con- 
stantly, " Come down ere my child die." 

Christ answered the nobleman's prayer, but 
not in the way that the nobleman expected. So 
will He do with us. Christ then said to the 
nobleman, " Go thy way, thy son liveth." 

What was true then is true now. Christ's 
word spoken at Cana provoked its echo at 
Capernaum; sickness fled from his victim, and 



" The Miracles Performed. 81 

left this memorial in its flight : " Truly this 
was the Son of God." Christ is now in His 
holy place, and we are upon the earth; but if 
His word can travel five miles and heal that 
nobleman's son, the same word can travel from 
His throne in the loftiest heaven, cleave its 
way, unspent in its transit, unweakened by the 
distance, and go into the sick man's heart, 
into the dead man's grave, and into the guilty 
man's conscience, and speak words of resur- 
rection and life. There is a connecting and 
transmissive wire between heaven and earth; 
there is a communication with the skies and 
the very throne of God. 

What adds to the glory of this miracle per- 
formed by Our Lord is this: The same word 
that cured the sickness of the son, cured the 
scepticism of the father, for it is added : " And 
the nobleman believed." This teaches us that 
no man ever interests himself in the welfare of 
another without receiving a reflex blessing in 
doing so. It is God's law, that in watering 
others, we shall be watered ourselves. 



82 The Life of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTEK X. 

" THE MIRACLES PERFORMED BY JESUS CHRIST." 

(Continued). 

We shall not follow with a discussion of all 
the miracles wrought by Jesus Christ, but select 
a few of the more prominent, so as to show that 
the Lord possessed power to control the forces 
of nature, and at His bidding or touch, the 
very forces of nature are made to serve a 
higher and a nobler end. 

Hence, we call attention to " The hungry 
multitude, and how they were fed," " to the 
lepers, and how they were healed," " to the 
blind, and how they received their sight." 

The people thronged eagerly in crowds to 
hear the word of the Son of God. In vain did 
He retire to the desert to avoid the multitude. 
They followed Him even there, forgetting to 
provide themselves with food. Poor people, 
they were like a flock without a shepherd! 
There was no one to teach them the way to 
heaven, and as Jesus came to be their Guide, 



" The Miracles Performed. 83 

and their Shepherd, He could not cast them off. 
And He said : "I have compassion on the mul- 
titude, for behold, they have followed Me for 
three days." " I will not send them away fast- 
ing, lest, perhaps they faint on the way." 

Addressing Himself to His disciples, He 
asked them : " Have you any bread ? " And 
they said : " Master, we have only five loaves 
and two fishes, but what is that for such a mul- 
titude ? " 

" No matter," said the Lord, " make the peo- 
ple sit down, and bring Me the loaves and fishes." 
The disciples did as they were told, whereupon 
the Saviour blessed the loaves and fishes, and 
broke, and gave to them to distribute to the 
people, and after all had eaten there yet re- 
mained twelve baskets filled with the fragments 
which were left. Our Lord performed a simi- 
lar miracle on another occasion, when He fed 
four thousand men with seven loaves and a few 
fishes. The feeding of the five thousand with a 
few loaves and fishes is undoubtedly one of the 
most striking of our Saviour's miracles. It was 
performed in the presence of five thousand wit- 
nesses. These were not only spectators, but 
they were the recipients of the favor shown, 



84 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

and they watched the whole procedure with 
vigilance and astonishment, for they were 
greatly benefited, as they were refreshed and 
strengthened when weary with hunger and fa- 
tigue. This miracle of Our Lord was also re- 
markable from the open and sensible manner 
in which it was performed. 

All present not only saw the food grow in 
their hands, but they saw it increasing in the 
hands of those who were near to them. 

They saw the process continuing for some 
time, till the five thousand men, women and 
children were refreshed and fully satisfied. 

They then heard Our Saviour give orders to 
His apostles to " gather up the fragments, that 
nothing be lost." 

They saw these collected, and they then saw 
that twelve basketsful were taken up. The 
greatness of the miracle was not so much in the 
number of persons supplied with food as in the 
amount which was left over, after all had 
been satisfied. 

The conclusion was obvious and irresistible, 
and plainly showed that the power that had 
wrought the miracle was divine. 

This was the only miracle of our Saviour 



" The Miracles Performed." 85 

that is recorded by all the four Evangelists. 

It is, however, very remarkable that the 
effect produced on the minds of the scribes and 
Pharisees was not admiration and conviction, 
respecting the power and character of Jesus 
Christ, but merely a selfish desire that He 
would continue to support them by such mir- 
acles, and repeat the miracle of the " manna " 
given to the Israelites in the Wilderness. But 
though this miracle did not produce the proper 
effect upon them, it clearly showed that He 
Who had performed it was no less than the 
Son of the living God. 

It is quite evident that He Who could mi- 
raculously increase the bread to satisfy the 
hungry multitude, is the same God Who mul- 
tiplies the seed put into the ground, and Who 
makes the grass to grow for the use of man and 
beast. 

We dig up the earth, and sow the seed there- 
in, but it is God Who fructifies that seed and 
causes it to grow. When it has appeared above 
the ground, it is His rain that waters it, His 
air and light that nourishes it, and His sun 
that ripens it. 

Such is the perfect order of creation. Such 



86 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

the wisdom and harmony, the variety and unity 
which pervades all the works of God. 

Not only has He given in abundance for the 
supply of all our wants, but He has also pro- 
vided munificently for man's pleasure. Xa- 
ture is, as it were, a magnificent table, sprea 1 
by God, as a perpetual banquet for the chil- 
dren of men. 

Not only does Jesus Christ perform mir- 
acles in satisfying the needs of the body, but 
He displays His marvelous power in healing 
diseases. Take the case of " The Lepers." 

The superhuman power of the Saviour, and 
His great goodness, drew around Him all the 
sick, the infirm, and the afflicted, and He 
healed them. A poor leper came to Him, and 
said : " Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make 
me whole." Jesus said : " I will, be thou 
whole, but go show thyself to the priests, and 
make the offering commanded by the law of 
Moses." 

One day He cured ten lepers, of whom one 
only remained to thank Him, and He was a 
Samaritan. The Saviour was deeply moved by 
the ingratitude of the nine who did not return 
to give thanks. 



" The Miracles Performed." 87 

" And He said, were there not ten lepers 
cured ? " " Where are the nine ? " So odious 
is ingratitude before God and man. 

Take the case of " The Blind Man." 

A poor blind man, having learned that Jesus 
was passing by, cried after Him, saying: 
" Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me." 

The disciples would have driven him away, 
but he only cried the more, " Jesus, Thou Son 
of David, have mercy on me ! " Jesus asked 
him : " What wilt thou that I do unto thee ? " 
The blind man replied : " Lord, that I may 
receive my sight." " Receive thy sight," said 
Jesus unto him, " thy faith hath made thee 
whole." 

And immediately the blind man opened his 
eyes and saw, and he followed Jesus, giving 
thanks to God. But this was not the only blind 
man to whom Jesus gave sight. In Jerusalem 
He met one who had been blind from his 
birth. The disciples, observing him, asked this 
question: " Master, who hath sinned, this man 
or his parents, that he should be born blind ? " 

The Saviour answered: "Neither hath this 
man sinned, nor his parents; he is born blind 
in order that the works of God may be made 



88 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

manifest in him." Jesus then spat upon the 
ground, made clay of the spittle, anointed the 
man's eyes, and said : " Go wash in the pool of 
Siloam." The man answered by saying : " I 
went, I washed, and I see." 

How did the blind man receive his sight? 
The Lord said : " Go wash in the pool of 
Siloam " ; the man did as he was bidden. This 
perhaps, was to try his obedience; just as in the 
almost analogous case of the miracle performed 
on Naaman the Syrian, concerning which we 
read that " Elisha sent a messenger unto him, 
saying, Go wash in Jordan seven times, and 
thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou 
shalt be clean. But Kaaman was wroth, and 
went away, and said, Behold, I thought he will 
surely come out to me, and stand, and call on 
the name of the Lord his God, and strike his 
hand over the place and recover the leper." 
This man, however, in favorable contrast, 
obeyed the command, and went, and washed 
and saw. 

The man, we read, " Saw " ; and the mo- 
ment he saw he returned to his home. No 
doubt his parents, his friends, and his neigh- 
bors were amazed to see a man, a well-known 



" The Miracles Performed." 89 

blind beggar, now in the possession of his sight. 
Some said, "It is he." How very natural! 
Others said, " It is very like him ! " A blind 
man walks with his head back, and puts his 
foot or his hand foremost, to feel that the way 
is clear, but the moment his eyesight is restored 
the head resumes its natural position. Not 
only is the face altered, but the whole shape, 
tone, mannerism of the man undergoes a com- 
plete transformation. 

You can, therefore, easily conceive how nat- 
urally some of his neighbors said, " This is 
he," and others said " It is like him," but he 
said, " I am he." They doubted his identity, 
and asked him how the change took place. He 
said : " A man (for he was not yet convinced 
that Christ was the Messiah) made clay, 
and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go 
to the pool of Siloam and wash ; and I went 
and washed, and I received my sight." 

We shall not continue the dialogue which 
took place between the man and the Pharisees 
concerning the miracle, but we rest upon the 
fact that a miracle was performed, and that 
Jesus performed it. 

As for the metaphysical, speculative, psycho- 



90 The Life of Jesus Chrfst. 

logical questions which men would raise, I can- 
not enter into these; but so long as the eyes 
of men are opened, I will mention the Phys- 
ician's name. 

These facts are at hand every day. Such 
miracles were wrought once for all, they are be- 
ing accomplished morning by morning, night 
by night; the one thing men are now recover- 
ing is their eyesight. We shall miss the genius 
of the whole thought if we limit the word eye- 
sight to some bodily function or exercise. 

Sight means larger vision, keener perception, 
an awakening of all the faculties of the mind 
to a state of keen, exact, complete penenetra- 
tion. " Lord, that I may receive my sight ! " 

" Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold 
wondrous things out of Thy law." " The com- 
mandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the 
eyes." 

May the Great Physician save us from look- 
ing at surfaces, outsides, transient shapes and 
symbols, and give us that peculiar penetrating 
vision that sees without staring, and that 
knows afar off what lights are coming up on the 
horizon. 



" The Miracles Performed." 91 

Christ always completes His work : " Jesus 
heard that they had cast the man out of the 
synagogue," because he acknowledged the fact 
that a great miracle had been performed upon 
him; "and when Jesus had found him" — 
how did He happen to go that way? For the 
same reason that He went the way in the first 
instance. 

He knows all the roads, all the byways and 
highways. He knows all the roads to human 
dwellings and human halting-places. 

" Jesus heard that they had cast him out ; 
and when He had found him, he said unto him, 
Dost thou believe on the Son of God ? " 

Now we come to the real pith and purpose 
of Christ's mission — " Dost thou believe on the 
Son of God ? " Was it not enough that the 
man could see ? Was it not enough that the 
man had a sound body? He had ears, and 
eyes, and hands ; he could smell the flowers, he 
could touch the very bloom of creation. Was it 
not enough ? 

~No. Jesus Christ must needs go to the inner 
man, and ask the all-involving question, " Dost 
thou believe on the Son of God ? " 

It is in this belief wo soe and feel and realize 



92 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

life. Without faith we cannot fly, we cannot 
walk, we cannot reach heaven. 

The man answered and said : " Who is He, 
Lord, that I might believe on him ? " We know 
some men by their tone of voice, some by their 
touch. This man seemed to realize already in 
whose presence he was. 

" Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen, 
and it is He that talketh with thee." Oh, 
sweetest words ! He might have known Who it 
was. " Never man spake like this man. What 
a voice ! What tender sympathy ! What sug- 
gestion ! What music ! 

" It is He that talketh with thee," and the 
man said : " Lord, I believe," and he stood 
there — a man ! 



The Miracles Performed." 93 



CHAPTEK XL 

" THE MIRACLES PERFORMED BY JESUS CHRIST." 

(Continued). 

Whilst the Pharisees and the doctors of the 
law, inflated with their vain science, reas- 
oned to no end on the miracles of the Saviour, 
and their hearts all withered with their own in- 
credulity, the grateful multitude adored and 
blessed the Son of God. 

There is something inexpressibly touching 
in the simple, artless faith of those who went 
with such entire confidence to implore His aid, 
and also in that inexhaustible goodness which 
wrought miracles at their request. One of the 
most affecting examples of this confidence in 
the power and goodness of the Saviour is that 
seen in the case of the " centurion " who im- 
plored the Lord to cure his dying servant. 
" And when Jesus was entering into Caper- 
naum, there came unto Him a centurion, be- 
seeching Him, and saying, Lord, my servant 



94 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tor- 
mented." And Jesus said: " I will come and 
heal him." 

This centurion was a Roman officer, and 
was called " a proselyte at the gate." lie was 
one of those Gentiles who felt the worthless- 
ness of heathenism, the absurdity of its poly- 
theistic rites, and saw in the doctrine of the 
Jews, interpolated as they were, mutilated as 
they had become, a response to what was deep- 
est and most earnest in his heart; he abjured 
the heathenism which could not satisfy him, 
and clave to that living religion which the 
Pharisees had overlaid, but from which truth 
still spake forth in much of its primeval purity 
and brightness. 

He was of the same class, plainly, as the 
centurion spoken of in the Acts of the Apos- 
tles : " Cornelius, a centurion of the band 
called the Italian band ; a devout man, and one 
that feared God with all his house, which gave 
alms to the people, and prayed to God alway." 
Just previous to the Advent of Christ there 
were many of these proselytes making their ap- 
pearance, which indicated the development of 
great purpose. They were the links that con- 



" The Miracles Performed." 95 

nected the Jew with the Gentile world; they 
were, as it were, those intermediate persons 
who were in communion with the Jews upon one 
hand, and in contact with the Gentiles upon 
the other hand ; and were the premonitory signs 
and symptoms of that great fusion of the hu- 
man family, in which there should be neither 
Jew nor Gentile, nor Greek nor barbarian, nor 
bond nor free, but Christ should be in all. 

It is a remarkable fact, that whenever God is 
about to take a great step in the development of 
His Kingdom upon earth, He always gives pre- 
liminary signs of its approach. 

The great fact that was to occur when Christ 
came was the fusion of the Jews and Gentiles 
into one redeemed family. The preliminary 
foreshadows, flung back upon the world from 
that sun before he rose above the horizon, were 
these proselytes at the gate — men who were not 
Jews, because they did not conform to all the 
rites of the Jews, and who were not Gentiles, 
because they rejected the polytheistic religion 
of the Gentiles ; but who, therefore, constituted 
the connecting links and bands between the 
two, and the pioneers of that brighter and bet- 
ter fellowship, in which Jew and Gentile 



96 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

should be lost in the family name, " Christian/' 
and Christ be all in all. 

This centurion, then, who was thus " a 
proselyte at the gate," came to Christ, as it is 
recorded in one Gospel, or sent to Christ by his 
friends, as it is recorded in another, and what 
one does by his representative he does himself ; 
for you will often see this interchange of terms 
used in the New Testament. 

But this sense of unworthiness was so great, 
that he said : " I am not worthy that Thou 
shouldest come under my roof." 

This Christian soldier came to Jesus, and 
asked Him to interfere in behalf of his sick 
slave. He was a brave man, for such a Roman 
soldier must be ; he was a humble man, for such 
a Christian always is; and he was a kind, an 
affectionate, and a loving man, who felt an 
interest in the health and happiness of his poor 
sick slave. , 

Jesus said : " I will come and heal him." 
" Nay, I am a man under authority, and am 
not worthy, but just speak the word only." 

The Centurion little knew what he was say- 
ing. " The Word " — that would have been 
beautiful and complete — " the word only." 



" The Miracles Performed. 97 

Thore he falls into softness and weakness; he 
shows the stoop which proves him to be but a 
man. " The word only." The word is. the 
authority, the word is the power, the word is 
the soul, the word is the incarnation. " In the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was 
with God, and the Word was God. Your word 
is yourself. Do not imagine that your speech 
is something independent of y,our individual- 
ity; your speech is your soul in utterance. 

When a man speaks earnestly, the word is 
the very fire and flame of his heart. Jesus 
Christ could not but speak earnestly, so His 
quietest word held the thunder, the lightning, 
as the dew-drop holds it, for there is force 
enough in that one dew-drop, if rightly touched, 
tc rend the mountain and throw down the altar 
stair that faced heavenward. Let your yea be 
yea, and your nay nay — let your word be your 
true self, and it will always be, according to the 
degree of your capacity and influence, with 
authority and power. 

Now it is Jesus Christ's turn to speak. O 
that we could have seen that marred and sor- 
row-riven face when he lifted it up and mar- 
veled. " Yerily I say unto you, I have not 



98 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

found so great faith, no, not in Israel." A 
great wave of emotion swelled his heart, and a 
great love was pulsating and throbbing within 
Him for the healing and salvation of men. 

The centurion's servant was healed at the 
word of Jesus Christ. 

But there are still greater miracles to tell. It 
was indeed very marvelous to open blind eyes, 
cleanse lepers, and heal the sick; but still more 
marvellous to raise the dead. 

Take the case of the raising of Lazarus from 
the dead. There are three instances of this kind 
recorded in the Gospels. " The Daughter of 
Jairus," the " Widow's Son of Nain," and Laz- 
arus. 

We shall take that of Lazarus as sufficient 
for our present purpose. The scene of this 
miracle was at " Bethany," the home of Mary 
and Martha and Lazarus. There is something 
beautiful in this allusion. I have no doubt 
that Bethany had given birth to some heroes, 
poets, statesmen, philosophers; and if some 
rabbi had been asked what was the greatest 
glory of Bethany, he would have pointed to 
some tall, tapering spire, some exquisite speci- 
men of architectural grandeur, or he would 



" The Miracles Performed. 99 

have unfolded the page that contained the 
names of some great poet who was born in it, or 
some illustrious hero who bled and suffered for 
his country. 

But these characteristics are all restricted to 
this world. The sounds of the fame of heroes, 
poets and philosophers are spent before they 
reach the skies, but the sigh of the broken 
heart is heard in heaven louder than the seven 
thunders; the simple petition of a contrite 
spirit rises to God swifter than an angel's 
wing can clip, and rises higher than an arch- 
angel's pinions can soar. So here the only trace 
in the history of Bethany that had its reflec- 
tion beside God's throne was this: That two 
sisters lived there with their brother Lazarus. 

It was not the town of the hero, not the 
town of the poet ; but the town of Mary and her 
sister Martha. These two fair, and frail and 
fragile flowers were in the sight of God the 
fairest things in Bethany. 

There is another trait. Mary, and Martha, 
and Lazarus were bosom friends of Jesus — for 
Jesus, let 11s never forget, was a Man. As a 
man He had His friends. There is not a sym- 
pathy that nestles in the heart of a saint that 

L.ofC. 



ioo The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus had not in all its purity; there is not a 
sorrow that hangs like a cloud over the broken 
and wounded spirit of a believer that Jesus did 
not realize, for He was our Elder Brother — our 
great High Priest, touched with the feelings of 
our infirmities. " 

We read in John's Gospel : " Xow Jesus 
loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 
When he heard, therefore, that Lazarus was 
sick, He abode two days still in the same place 
where He was." 

This seems to startle us. It seems like a dis- 
appointment. How can it be explained ? 
Mary and Martha had sent for Jesus, but stiil 
lie tarried. Jesus said to His disciples that 
" the sickness should not be unto death," but 
that it should be " for the glory of God." When 
Jesus arrived at Bethany, Martha meets Him 
with this lamentation : " If Thou hadst been 
here, our brother had not died." 

And Mary joined in the same, sad strain. 
This indicated faith on the part of these two 
women. But the " ifs " of man are the decrees 
of God. The Jews, we read, followed Mary to 
the tomb. " 'When Jesus, therefore, saw her 
weeping, and the Jews also weeping which 



11 The Miracles Performed." 101 

came with her, He groaned in the spirit, and 
was touched." 

It is added by the sacred writer that whilst 
Jesus was indignant at the havoc that sin had 
made, indignant at the spoils of the enemy, 
" Jesus wept." It is possible that He wept as 
a friend over a friend; for we can never for- 
get that Jesus was a Man — a sympathetic Man. 
He was truly a " Man of sorrows, and ac- 
quainted with grief." 

" Jesus wept ! " What a mixture in this 
miracle of the sympathy of man and of the 
majesty of God ! The Jews exclaimed, as they 
saw Jesus weeping^ " Behold how He loved 
him." 

We then read, " Jesus lifted up His eyes 
and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast 
heard Me. And I know that Thou hearest Me 
always; but because of the people which stand 
by I said it, that they may believe that Thou 
hast sent Me." 

And when He had thus spoken, He cried 
with a loud voice: " Lazarus, come forth." 

Those words thrilled once more through that 
region of impenetrable darkness which sepa- 
rates us from this world and the world to come ; 



102 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

and scarcely were they spoken when, like a 
spectre, from the rocky tomb issued a figure, 
swathed indeed in its white and ghastly cere- 
ments, bound hand and foot, but not livid, not 
horrible — the figure of a youth with healthy 
blood of a restored life flowing through his 
veins; of a life restored — so tradition tells us 
— for thirty more long years to life, and light, 
and love. 

The words " Come forth " shall go down into 
nature's heights, and receive a magnificent re- 
sponse ! 

Lazarus heard the voice, and came forth, and 
Jesus said: " Loose him and let him go." The 
miracle is complete, Christ is Lord indeed. 



" The Disciples in the Storm." 103 



CHAPTER XII. 



Many of the miracles to which we have 
called attention had reference to the healing of 
the diseases of the body and the raising of the 
dead to life again, which proved Jesus Christ 
to be " the Resurrection and the Life." We 
now turn to the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, 
and we there see His power over Nature. 

We again ask the question : " What is a 
miracle ? " 

And we answer : " It is just God's Omnipo- 
tence becoming a pedestal or candlestick on 
which to plant God's truth; it is Omnipotent 
beneficence coming down from heaven, point- 
ing to a doctrine, or specifying a person, and 
saying that the one is of God, and the other is 
God manifesting Himself in the flesh." 

At such a crisis as Christ stilling the storm, 
that a miracle should be performed was nat- 
ural, but when that crisis had passed away, 



104 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

that the miracle should cease is no less natural. 

When the fruit is ripe, the calyx or the 
petals that surround it drop away; when the 
building is well founded and complete the scaf- 
folding is taken down. It is so with miracles. 

We have now come to that era when it is not 
more power that man needs to see, but more 
grace that man needs to have and enjoy. 

Let us now turn our attention to the beautiful 
miracle recorded in the sixth chapter of John's 
Gospel, and also recorded in the fourteenth 
chapter of St. Matthew. 

In the case of feeding the multitude the 
disciples rashly undertook to give advice to the 
Master; they rushed into sacred and forbidden 
places. Out of their urgent cleverness they 
had evolved the suggestion which pleased them 
greatly. 

We have seen how Jesus Christ treated the 
smart ignorance of his shallow counsellors, and 
with what infinite beneficence He confounded 
the notion of sending anybody away from Him- 
self to find anything that could do human life 
the very least good. 

~Now the scene is changed. Jesus Christ 
leaves the disciples to manage their ship, just 



" The Disciples in the Storm." 105 

to show them how cleverly they can do without 
Him. They wanted to take the bigger case into 
their own hands, and He would allow them 
so to do, but to meet them by gracious com- 
promise He gives them a ship to take care of, 
and in this they miserably failed. Thus He 
always rebukes busv meddlers with His ad- 
ministration ; He gives them something to do 
by their own skill and power, and shows them 
by many a disaster what it is to take away from 
its divine centre, and to conduct life on a 
wrong principle. 

He allows us to make little experiments, but 
it, is well for us if He be looking on from the 
mountain-top. 

Jesus went up into a mountain apart to 
pray. We wonder how a grand outward min- 
istry can be sustained. The answer is simple 
in its sublimity. Every outward ministry that 
is massive, life-taxing, is sustained by moun- 
tain-climbing, solitary communion with God, 
and soul-fellowship with the Father. 

If the Master could not do without lonely 
prayer, the servant surely cannot dispense with 
secret devotion. 

Turning now our attention to the disciples, 



106 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

we find that their management of the ship wa3 
a poor management. The ship was now in the 
midst of the sea, tossed with waves, for the 
wind was contrary. They who were going to 
manage the multitude were unable to manage 
their own ship. Our helplessness ought to be 
the basis of our best education. If we cannot 
manage the little how can we manage the great ? 
Thus light is let in upon the administration of 
the universe. If we are in trouble with one little 
ship, how then can Ave control all the ships of 
the sea, all the star-vessels that sail through the 
infinite firmament, all the hosts of men that 
gather on the face of the earth, all the legions 
of angels that people the cities above, all the 
forces that burn and throb in every line of the 
immeasurable universe ? 

We may see how great the Lord is by seeing 
how little we are ourselves. " On the fourth 
watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walk- 
ing on the sea." Whilst the disciples were 
buffeting the storm, Jesus was praying for 
them on the hill-side unknown to them. I 
think there is something exquisitely beautiful 
in this, that Christ does not wait until we are 
in trouble, and then pray for us; but that He 



" The Disciples in the Storm." 107 

prays for us first. " I have prayed for thee 
that thy faith fail not, before Satan hath got 
liberty to sift thee as wheat." As long as faith 
remains, let the storm be ever so severe, faith 
is the victory " that overcometh the world." 

Such, then, we suppose to be the substance 
of Christ's intercessory prayer for His people 
in the midst of affliction. 

We read in the Gospels that when Christ 
came to His disciples, He came walking on the 
waves of the sea. 

Moses went through the channel of a divided 
sea; but Christ walked upon the bosom of the 
undivided sea, turning its waves into a pave- 
ment, and its waters into a promenade, indicat- 
ing that the Earth-lord and the Sea-lord of the 
universe was present there, and that nature 
obeyed its lord and maker. 

Does not this teach us that just as the waves 
of the sea were under Christ's feet, so all diffi- 
culties, all trials, all that His people fear, are 
under His feet still. Sin, death and Satan are 
under Christ's feet; they are conquered foes. 

Look again at the time of Christ's appear- 
ance upon the sea. The ancient division of the 
night was in three watches, but here the Roman 



108 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

division is adopted, which was into four 
watches. 

Christ allowed His disciples to struggle in 
the storm, to get only half across the sea; and 
then He came to them at the fourth watch, or 
about three o'clock in the morning. We in- 
quire : " Was that the best time for Him to 
come.? " Yes, it was. He came at the moment 
when it was most for His glory, and most for 
their good. 

He came at the moment when " Man's ex- 
tremity was God's opportunity and man's de- 
liverance was God's glory." We see, also, that 
when Christ comes to His disciples, how often 
are they mistaken. 

It is written, that when Jesus went to His 
disciples, they " saw Him walking on the sea, 
and were troubled, saying, ' It is a Spirit.' ' 
The Jews had a peculiar belief that the spirits 
of the departed visited their relatives long after 
death, and in this instance the thought of a 
spirit of some departed one was coming to them. 
Why did they misapply it ? They had known, 
and seen, and heard Jesus before. When 
people are in trouble they generally look at 
what way they think it possible for them to see, 



" The Disciples in the Storm." 109 

and if they do not see deliverance coming in 
that way, they leap to the conclusion that there 
is no escape at all. 

These poor disciples thought there was but 
one way of escape from the storm, and that was 
to reach the other side of the sea ; but when 
Christ came to deliver them by a now and un- 
expected way, they misapprehended Him. 
" Jesus went unto them walking on the water." 
If this act stood alone, it might affright us. 

We must read every miracle as part of some 
great wonder ; then it will come to us not with 
violent and mighty shock ; but it will fall into 
the rhythmic march of life that could never be 
measured by human calculation. Yet all past 
miracles are lost upon us. 

We must have a present miracle. The dis- 
ciples therefore could not live upon the miracles 
of yesterday, they must have the miracle of 
that particular hour. So must it be with our- 
selves — we cannot live upon historical won- 
ders, we can only be nourished by daily revela- 
tions of divine power and continual manifesta- 
tions of divine care and love. Life is a con- 
tinual miracle. The bread we eat is always 
broken by divine hands. If we consider the 



no The Life of Jesus Christ. 

bread that is in our hands, its history and 
origin, we shall find that it was broken by di- 
vine, all-blessing hands, and is itself a miracle. 
The disciples said: " It is a spirit." But how 
beautifully does our Lord reply to them, " It 
is I, be not afraid." 

That voice which sounded so musically upon 
the streets of Jerusalem, which had spoken such 
words of power, that voice rose, and rang out 
its own peculiar melody amid the roar of the 
winds and the noise of the sea-waves, and car- 
ried consolation to their drooping hearts. " It 
is I, be not afraid." 

Their sorrow was instantly turned into joy, 
their faith into absolute assurance, and they 
were perfectly comforted. There was some- 
thing beautiful and very delightful in this as a 
lesson for Christ's followers in all ages. Why 
does not God show Himself? 

God is a Spirit. It is not enough to see the 
figure ; the sight is often misleading ; so the ear 
must be charmed, the voice can do what the 
eye fails to accomplish. So Jesus said, " Be of 
good cheer, it is I, be not afraid." You cannot 
read the sermon, you must hear it. Some of us 
cannot read the Bible, we must hear it read by 



11 The Disciples in the Storm." in 

a sympathetic voice, every tone of which is a 
subtle suggestion or a profound exposition. 

The ministry of the human voice is of God's 
appointment. It charms itself into ineffable 
concording, apocalyptic variety and suggestion ; 
it booms, it whispers, it commands, it soothes, 
it thunders with strength, it prays with piteous- 
ness of sympathy. 

The Gospel, therefore, is given in charge of 
the human voice. Preach the Gospel, it can 
never be read, but in a secondary and intro- 
ductory sense it must be heard. The voice of 
Jesus was recognized when His figure was in- 
distinguishable. 

In the sick chamber it is pleasant to hear the 
voice saying : " It is I, be not afraid." When 
depositing the dust of our friends in the grave, 
it is comforting to hear the words, " It is I, be 
not afraid " ; and to read upon the tombstone, 
in the coming fore-light of the resurrection 
morning, " Be not afraid, I am the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life." At the great last day, it 
is recorded, " that all that are in their graves 
shall hear His voice, and shall come forth." 

We read that " When Jesus was received 
into the ship the wind ceased and there was a 



ii2 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

great calm/' What practical lesson do we 
learn from this ? It is that when Christ is in 
the heart it is life. Christ in the conscience, 
it is legislation. Christ in the understanding, 
it is light ; that harmony takes the place of dis- 
cord, sunshine that of cloud, and happiness in 
place of misery. Christ in the heart will give 
peace ; Christ in the home will light it up with 
new radiance ; Christ in a nation will give 
it stability; and Christ in the world will 
purify it. 

The result of this miracle was that the dis- 
ciples worshiped the Saviour. To sum up, we 
may classify the miracles as follows: First, 
" Miracles of Love," such as the " Raising of 
the dead," " Curing of diseases, and healing 
the sick " ; second, " Miracles of Power," such 
as " Creating bread to feed the hungry multi- 
tude," " Destroying the fig-tree," " Walking on 
the sea, stilling the tempest, changing water 
into wine, multiplying the fishes, and in pass- 
ing through the angry crowd." 

Here, then, we have healed suffering, healed 
heart-ache, healed sin, and the healed sin is the 
greatest miracle of all. 

Thus all the miracles of Christ fall into 



" The Disciples in the Storm." 113 

beauteous rhythmic relationship. In reality 
there was but one miracle, and that one miracle 
was Himself, His Incarnation, His Life and 
Death, and Resurrection from the Dead. 



ii4 The Life of Jesus Christ, 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

" THE GREAT TEACHER." 

The general character of His doctrine was 
Divine in its basis, and simple in its form. 
Teaching was the great business of the life of 
Christ during the days of His public ministry. 

He was sent to teach, and to preach the doc- 
trine of the Kingdom. The speaker in the 
Book of Job was undoubtedly thinking of the 
Great Teacher when he asked the question: 
" Who teacheth like Him." 

And He is the Redeemer, of Whom the 
prophet Isaiah was telling when he said : " He 
would teach us to profit, and would lead us by 
the way that we should go." And Nicodemus 
said of Him : " That He was a Teacher sent 
from God." St. Matthew tells us that " Jesua 
went about all Galilee, teaching in their syna- 
gogues." When Jesus Christ was brought be- 
fore Pilate, His enemies brought this charge 



" The Great Teacher." 115 

against Him, that He had been " teaching 
throughout all Jewry." 

In St. Luke's Gospel it is said that " the 
elders of the people came unto Him as He was 
teaching." And St. John 2 in the seventh chap- 
ter, says : " JSTow, about the midst of the feast, 
Jesus went up into the temple and taught." 
And the Jews marveled, saying, " How know- 
eth this man letters, having never learned ? " 
And Jesus answered them and said : " My doc- 
trine is not Mine, but His that sent Me." 

And so we now come to look at the life of 
Christ from this point of view, namely, as a 
Teacher. When we read in John's Gospel that 
the chief priests sent some of their officers to 
take Him prisoner, and bring Him unto them, 
the officers went, and listened, and then joined 
the company who were listening to His teach- 
ing. 

The words of the Great Teacher had such an 
effect upon them that they could not think of 
touching Him. So thev went back to their 
masters without their prisoner, and said: 
" Never man spake like this man." The pub- 
lic ministry of Christ began when He was 
thirty years of age, and lasted three years. It 



n6 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

was full of lights and shadows. It was diversi- 
fied with sunshine and gloom. It was lulled 
into calms, and swept by storms. But out of 
His words and works have come the blessing of 
eternal sunshine. 

Only a small fractional part of His words 
were left upon record, but those we have are 
the embodiment of wisdom and of power. They 
are transcendent and immortal. They are 
spirit and they are life. 

" From heaven He came, of heaven He spoke, 
To heaven He led His followers' way ; 
Dark clouds of gloomy night He broke, 
Unveiling an Immortal day." 

We here note the perfect originality and in- 
dependence of His teaching. We have a great 
many men who are original, in the sense of be- 
ing originators, within a certain boundary of 
educated thought. But the originality of 
Christ is uneducated. 

That He draws nothing from the stores of 
learning can be seen at a glance. The impres- 
sion we have in reading His instructions justi- 
fies to the letter the language of His contempo- 
raries when they say : " This man hath never 



" The Great Teacher." 117 

learned." There is nothing in any of His al- 
lusions or forms of speech that indicates learn- 
ing. Indeed, there is nothing in Him that be- 
longs to His age or country — no opinion, or 
task or prejudice. 

The attempts that have been made to show 
that He borrowed from the Persians, or the 
Essenes, or the Egyptians have all so palpably 
failed, as not even to require a deliberate 
answer. 

If He is simply a man, as we hear, then He 
is most certainly a new and singular kind of 
man, never before heard of; one who visibly is 
quite as great a miracle in the world as if He 
avo re not a man. 

We can see for ourselves, in the simple di- 
rectness and freedom of His teachings, that 
whatever He advances is for Himself. 

Shakespeare, for instance, whom we name as 
being probably the most creative and original 
spirit the world has ever produced, one of the 
class, too, that are called self-made men, is yet 
tinged in all his works with human learning. 
His glory is, indeed, that so much of what is 
groat in history and historic character lives and 
appears in his dramatic creations. Shakes- 



n8 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

peare is sometimes spoken of as the high-priest 
of human nature. 

But Christ, understanding human nature so 
as to address it more skilfully than he, never 
draws from its historic treasures. 

He is the High Priest, rather, of the Divine 
nature, speaking as one that has come out from 
God, and has nothing to borrow from the world. 
His teachings are just as full of Divine nature 
as Shakespeare's was of human nature. 

As to His mode of teaching, it was not sys- 
tematic, and in this example w T as imitated by 
His apostles. The language and form in 
which it was delivered was unsophistical ; that 
is, instead of employing terms of science, He 
formed His expressions from passing occur- 
rences, and whatever objects happened to be 
present to His hearers at the time of His ad- 
dressing them. 

Or else He spoke in Parables, or made use 
of that ancient symbolic language so often 
adopted by the Jewish prophets, as when He 
washed His disciples' feet, and sat as a child in 
the midst of them. As to the matter of His 
teaching, His discourses aim either at correct- 
ing what was perverted, and explaining what 



11 The Great Teacher." 119 

was obscure in the preceding state of morals 
and religious knowledge, or else they declared 
truths not before revealed. 

We now call attention to a few things that 
were prominent in the Teaching of Jesus of 
Nazareth. 

First. — " Christ was a very popular 
Teacher." 

He attracted the masses. Although He was 
without folly, without art, without depravity, 
in a world of frivolity and deceit and wicked- 
ness ; although he appealed to no interest, or 
passion, or prejudice, but He set His pupils 
as their first lesson, to solve the hard problem 
of poverty, shame and persecution for the 
truth; yet men in throngs pressed after Him; 
in the streets and in the temple, in the city 
and in the wilderness, a sea of excited human 
heads dashed about Him. He scarcely had 
time to eat, or drink, or sleep without observa- 
tion. 

Now the roof is open above Him to let down 
a suffering man to His sight, and now a vessel 
is anchored at His fcot that He may escape the 
pressure of the crowd that arises around Eim 
on the land. ISTow He ascends a mountain that 



120 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

He may look down upon the upturned faces be- 
low Him, and now He must hide Himself in 
the darkness and in the mountain-side in order 
to have private prayer. 

It is only occasionally that any man can get 
a crowd. ISTo man can hold it, the multitude 
soon cease to have curiosity. 

When Socrates taught, a few young men only 
were enchanted with his voice ; and when Plato 
lectured, the people, though they ran together 
to hear him, left him as rapidly as they col- 
lected. 

Jesus not only gathered the masses from city 
and watch-tower, from palace and cot, but 
kept them around Him till He died. 

At the beginning of His ministry, " great 
multitudes followed Him from Galilee, and 
from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from 
Judea, and from beyond Jordan " ; and when 
He closed that wonderful ministry, the multi- 
tudes spread their garments and palm branches 
beneath his triumphant feet, and shouted 
" Hosanna to the Son of David." Even when 
He was hanging upon the Cross, all Calvary is 
alive around Him. What is the secret of His 
popularity ? 



" The Great Teacher." 121 

We answer: " His doctrines were popular." 
The earth has produced a great many good men, 
but where is there one whose words are as 
broad and wise as those of Christ? 

The words of Alexander may move armies ; 
the words of Jesus moved hearts. The words 
of Demosthenes may move a nation; the words 
of Christ move the world. An Aristotle may 
sway the human mind for ages, but he must ere 
long drop the sceptre, for Jesus of Nazareth 
extends His moral dominion with every revolv- 
ing year. The words of Zoroaster, Confucius, 
Mohammed withstand not the light; but the 
words of Christ make light, and make it to 
abound. 

Scott, Baxter, Byron can move only a par- 
ticular frame of mind, but the Saviour reaches 
the mind in all its frames, the heart in all its 
tones. Every principle He announces has a 
world-wide sweep. 

Mark His summary of the Law: "Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind, 
with all thy heart, and with all thy strength," 
a precept so narrow as to measure the smallest 
man ; and again so broad as to compass the 
mightiest outgoings of the largest angel; so 



122 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

perfect as to bind all moral beings to the 
throne of God, and produce eternal and uni- 
versal harmony and happiness and progress. 
Again we observe — " That His style is popular." 
He that would teach the people must con- 
descend to speak as they speak. Christ's style 
is either dialogistic, as when He would con- 
found His foes; or allegorical, when He would 
reprove thb captious; or metaphorical, when 
He would instruct the inquiring — just the 
style of that great Grecian sage who sought to 
bring down philosophy from heaven to earth. 
He always teaches. In the field and in the 
highway, in the tumult and in the solitude, 
walking and resting, seated at meals or repos- 
ing on mountains, He is, concerning things 
both temporal and eternal, " a living epistle, 
known and read of all men." 

He so associates truth with the heaven and 
the earth as to make everything a memorial of 
duty, a remembrancer of truth, or a reprover of 
sin. He hath taught the hammer to echo to the 
ear of the laborer in every stroke the admoni- 
tion, " Labor not for the meat that perisheth." 
Who doth not drink water? Well, over every 
fountain and flood Christ hath poured this 



" The Great Teacher." 123 

crystal stream of truth, " Whosoever drinketh of 
this water shall thirst again, but whosoever 
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall 
never thirst." Who hath not lifted up his eyes 
to that glorious sun ? Well, in the sound of the 
voice from the sepulcher we hear Him saying, 
" I am the light of the world." Who hath not 
felt the night closing around him 1 Well, Jesus 
hath written on all its curtains this luminous 
line, " The night cometh when no man can 
work." 

Who hath not had his thoughts carried down 
to the chambers of death? Well, there is a 
voice from the sepulcher saying, " I am the 
Resurrection and the Life." Thus Christ 
touches almost every object in Nature ; and 
whatever he touches, though it be but a lily, or 
a sparrow, there leaps forth a living truth. 

With simplicity Jesus blends majesty. When 
He states a precept, it is though He had planted 
a new doctrine, it is as though He hung a new 
star in the heavens. 

Again. — " Jesus Christ is very Popular in 
His Sympathy." 

Teachers often make distinctions among their 
pupils. Thus Aristotle confined his attention 
to Alexander because he was Philip's son, and 



124 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Plato left the academy that he might instruct 
Dionysius ; but Christ, like the Father, is " no 
respecter of persons." 

He looks at man as man; He pierces through 
parentage, and rank, and wealth, and fame, 
and genius and power on the one hand, and 
through shame, and toil, and ignorance, and 
suffering and rags on the other, to the simple 
spirit; and when He finds it, He estimates it 
by its character and qualifications, all that con- 
stitutes its manhood — its capacity to be angel 
or devil forever. 

Whether He treads the highest or lowest 
walks of life, He stands upon the same plat- 
form.; whether He is surrounded by beggars or 
princes, He speaks as to the same brotherhood. 

While He pays due attention to Nicodemus, 
and the centurion, and Joseph of Arimathea, 
He is wont to turn from the palace to the hut, 
to gather around Him the children of want 
and sorrow, to move in light and mercy amid 
blinded minds and bleeding hearts — not be- 
cause of His partiality, but of their necessities. 

With a God-like spirit He stooped to chil- 
dren ; with Kingly condescension He ate at the 
tables of the poor. Without sympathy with 



"The Great Teacher." 125 

sin, and as a shepherd goes into the wilderness 
to seek and to save the lost, He preached to 
publicans and harlots. 

JSTot with the rude elbow of stoical indiffer- 
ence, but with the soft hand of life-giving love, 
He touched the coffin and the couch. 

In all this there is a peculiar beauty and pro- 
priety. Behold poor John Bunyan in his 
prison, as his children have gathered around 
him! To which does his heart most strongly 
turn ? It is to his pale, blind daughter ; and 
now, as they bid him good-bye, see how he 
grasps the hand of the helpless one, and detains 
her after the rest have gone away, and pours 
over her his most earnest, agonizing prayer! 
Now, had the Father of Mercies come down to 
that family, would He not, also, have shown 
most pity and tenderness to his eyeless one? 
Even so, when He did come to this world in the 
person of the blessed Christ. 

Christ was a Teacher democratic in the 
largest and best sense for the people, for all the 
people, for even the lowest of the people, for 
all the people alike. If it had not been, our 
hearts would have turned from II im as being 
unworthy to represent the Being Who lighted 



126 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

up that sun and poured the oceans from His 
urn. 

Second. — " Christ was a Human Teacher." 

His spirit is one of meekness and lowliness. 
These qualities may be passive; if so, they are 
infirmities; they are incompatible with de- 
cision, dignity, energy — with highest manhood. 

In Christ they are active. His answers are 
soft, because He chooses that the words which 
might burst from His lips, like the rebukes of 
Sinai, should distil as the dew of Hermon ; 
His reproofs are gentle, not because they 
want force, but because they enter the heart 
obliquely; His censures are mild, not for lack 
of power, but for abundance of love ; His man- 
ners are affable, not because He is fearful, or 
unsteady, or dependent, but because, while He 
holds the keys of death and hell, He wills, by 
bearing injuries, and reproaches, and perse- 
cutions, and crucifixion, with a forgiving tem- 
per, to set revengeful men an example. 

He is humble, not because of His infalli- 
bility, but because He would correct the arro- 
gance of fallible man; He is modest, not be- 
cause He undervalues His own qualifications, 
but because man overvalues his ; He was lowly, 



" The Great Teacher." 127 

not because His mind was not set on high, but 
that He might teach us how, while we pour 
heavenly music on the skies, we may dwell 
upon the ground. 

On suitable occasions, when mild reproof 
had been neglected, He stands up like fire and 
breathes like famine. In His dilemmas there 
was a caustic that burned scribes and Pharisees 
to the quick ; in His hand there was a scourge 
before which the clefilers of the temple fled; in 
His Parables there played a hidden lightning 
which ere lon^ rent every tower and place in 
Jerusalem ; yet in prevailing manner how 
gentle! how sweet! 

In the wayside He halts to welcome the 
softest voice of supplicating sorrow. When He 
delivers His farewell to His disciples, we see 
how He would " gather His children together 
as a hen gathereth her brood under her wings. " 

The themes of Christ evince His humility. 
Had He opened the veins of silver, or formed 
the philosopher's stone, or invented the elixir 
of mortal life ; had He pointed to the compass, 
or the steam engine, or the press; had He ex- 
hibited the imposing spectacle of history, or 
lifted the veil from the invisible world, how 



128 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

would warriors, philosophers and monarchs 
have tracked His footsteps to lay their honors 
at His feet! True, His mind moves through 
all nature as though He were familiar with its 
laws, and He not only makes no mistakes con- 
cerning them, but flashes beams of light across 
them which the intellect of man requires ages 
of study to appreciate; but He does not teach 
science — not because He could not, but because 
man could. Jesus, however, has no jealousy 
of philosophy; He never condemns it; He 
often, indeed, entices man to Nature, and 
would have him linger over its precious wells. 

He has no prejudice against books. This well, 
too, is deep, and leaves it, not because He has no 
bucket, but because He that would draw can 
make a bucket for himself. 

He confines His attention to Moral Knowl- 
edge — that which the world by wisdom could 
not know. But His themes are most novel, 
most elevated, most satisfying, yet the blinded 
and depraved world concentrates all its at- 
tempts upon them. 

The pretensions of Christ are humble. 
True, He says, " I and the Father are One " ; 



" The Great Teacher." 129 

and yet it required the greatest humility to 
make such a pretension. How much philos- 
ophy has cried against Jesus, " He hath a devil 
and is mad ! " ~No wonder the mob took up 
stones to stone Him ; no wonder the Sanhedrin 
could not rest till they led Him to Calvary. 
But we see not yet the depth of His humility. 
Listen to Him when He says : " I can of mine 
own self do nothing " ; instead of setting up 
His human reason as a god, He brings it to 
naught. " My doctrine is not Mine." He who 
touched all nature as God, Who brought life 
and immortality to light, and opened a fountain 
of mercy for all lands and all times, says, 
" Nothing of My wisdom has welled up from 
My own soul — it hath all come down from the 
Father of Lights." 

Third. — We observe " That Jesus Christ was 
an Independent Teacher." 

It is a pretty speculation of philosophy that 
every great man is either an embodiment of 
the genius of his own age, or a happy antici- 
pation of the next. According to this theory, 
the race, like the individual, is progressive, and 
its great minds are the marks of its successive 
stages of advancement. 



130 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Lord Bacon, for example, did but give visi- 
bility to the great thoughts that had been gath- 
ered over the civilized world ages before he 
arose. Sir I. Newton did but catch the apple 
which his times had already ripened; and 
George Washington was but a manifestation of 
the spirit that had long rushed through the 
quickened veins and breathed through the di- 
lated nostrils of his ancestors. But Jesus- 
Christ stands alone — the embodiment of no 
age, the anticipation of none! Though He 
lived two thousand years ago, He is ten thou- 
sand years ahead. His character has been 
studied age after age, and the more studied the 
more admired. 

Who hath ever found a fault in it ? His 
enemies have sought for one as for hid treas- 
ures, but in vain. His friends have endeav- 
ored to equal such a character, but no ore has 
succeeded. 

Though visible on earth, its place is far 
in heaven, and to see it you must look through 
a long colonnade of celestial light. 

The truth He brings is not truth in blossom 
or in fruit, but in seed ; not to adorn and wither 
but to fall into the soul and germinate. Christ 



" The Great Teacher." 131 

teaches the great principle of the subordination 
of the body to the soul, of fame and interest to 
duty, of the present life to that which is to 
come, principles which philosophers and poets, 
kings and prophets, sought but never found. 

We may develop and illustrate and systema- 
tize Christ's teachings, but never go beyond 
them. The germs of mental philosophy as well 
as morals are all in his blessed words. Po- 
litical economy lies wrapped up in the Golden 
Rule, and all the forms of charity and improve- 
ment are but streams from the fountain of His 
law of love. 

" Jesus Christ is independent of all instruct- 
ors. Few great men are self-taught ; they gen- 
erally owe their excellences to their opportuni- 
ties. Hence, Philip thanked the gods, not so 
much that they had given him a son, as that 
they had given that son an Aristotle. Even 
the mightiest intellects are very dependent. 
7^1 a to enjoyed the tutorship of Socrates, and 
the companionship of Xenophon, and though 
he compares teacher with teacher, argument 
with argument, system with system, that he 
may correct his errors and enlarge the com- 
pass of his truth. While communing with tho 



132 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

giants of his own times, he stands with holy 
awe on the banks of the Nile, till he seems to 
see Orpheus tune his lyre and Solon light his 
lamp. It was otherwise with Christ. He was 
not reared at Athens. No great school opened 
its gates to His footsteps. He was the son of 
a plain carpenter, in an obscure village of a 
rural district, in a despised province of the 
world ; and when He read the Scriptures to His 
neighbors, they said in astonishment : " How 
knoweth this man letters, never having 
learned ? " 

Jesus Christ is independent of books. He 
reads none. He writes none. He needs none. 
He turns everything round Him into books ; 
He makes legible the sympathetic ink with 
which every soul is overwritten. He did but 
touch Nathaniel's memory, and he brought out 
the truth, " Thou art the King of Israel." He 
but touched Peter's heart, and forth leaped the 
exclamation : " Thou art the Christ." He did 
but breathe his dying prayer over the cen- 
turion that guarded His Cross, and at once he 
exclaimed : " Truly, this man was the Son of 
God." It was not Christ's words that startled 
the Samaritan woman at the well, but her own 



" The Great Teacher." 133 

biography which he telegTaphed to her soul in 
an instant. 

Again. — " Jesus Christ is Independent of 
Human Reason." 

For six thousand years man sought, by dint 
of reason, to discover the origin, and essence 
and laws of all things, and all that time he was 
demonstrating that he knew nothing. 

Nothing so humiliating to the pride of hu- 
man reason as the history of its own achieve- 
ments. At length we have learned to come 
down from the clouds of speculation, and walk 
the earth as Adam did the garden, waiting for 
the voice of God. We gather truth as a child 
gathers flowers ; we compare facts ; we group 
them together; we deduce general principles, 
and arrange them in systems; and we call this 
science — and so it is — science which God wrote 
for us when the morning stars sang together, 
and all the sons of God shouted for joy. 

Man sought also by reason to scaffold himself 
up to God ; but his labors produced only a 
blasted and confounded babel. 

The greatest philosophy of ancient times, as 
the greatest of modern times, was but a nega- 
tive teacher. But Jesus Christ comes; He 



134 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

disperses the clouds and darkness which sur- 
rounds the God-head, in Nature and Providence 
and in the Old Testament. He marshals in- 
to harmony the stars which appeared to cross 
each other's paths in the skies of truth; He 
opens a path beyond the grave ; He lifts the cur- 
tain from the Judgment Seat of the Great 
Judge. 

All around the horizon of past and future, 
even outward eternally, Jesus floods the moun- 
tains with light. And yet He reasons not; 
He speaks not as man, with hesitation, with 
supposition, but with authority; an authority 
to which, while miracles certify, the soul it- 
self responds; for, although His revelations 
could not be discovered by reason, they com- 
mend themselves to reason. As face answers 
to face in water, so the truths of Jesus to the 
hearts of man. " Jesus spoke as never man 
spoke." 

The words of Christ are universally ac- 
knowledged to be the most potent ever uttered 
by any man, or heard by any mortal ear. 

Wherever they are repeated, they carry light 
into dark homes, kindle hopes in desponding 
hearts, and give victory and life to dying souls. 



" The Great Teacher." 135 

The words of Jesus still live on, and will con- 
tinue to live, until the final consummation of all 
things. 

There is scarcely a scene or object familiar 
to the Galilee of that day, which Jesus did not 
use as an illustration of some great moral truth. 
He spoke of green fields, and springing flow- 
ers, and the building of the vernal trees, of the 
red or lowering sky, of the sunrise and sunset, 
of wind and rain, of night and day, of clouds 
and lightning, of stream and river, of stars and 
lamps, of honey and salt, of wine and wheat, 
and corn and oil. He spoke of stewards, and 
gardeners, laborers and employers, of kings 
and shepherds, of courtiers in soft clothing, 
and brides in nuptial robes. All these are 
found in his discourses. 

He knew all life and gazed on it with a kind- 
ly as well as a kingly glance. A method which 
in its unapproachable beauty and finish stands 
unrivalled in the annals of human speech, and 
shall continue to give comfort and strength to 
the children of men as long as the world stands. 



136 The Life of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTEE XIY. 



We have referred to our Saviour as the 
" Great Teacher/' and tried to point out some 
of the things in His teachings which helped 
to make Him great. And now it may be well 
to speak of His methods of instruction which 
He employed. These are called " Parables." 
The parables were the windows which let in 
the light upon the great doctrines which He 
had propounded. 

At the beginning of His ministry our Sav- 
iour did not make much use of parables. But 
after He had been preaching for some time. 
He made a change in His way of teaching, and 
spoke in parables. 

On one occasion, after He had used the Para- 
ble of the Sower, the disciples came to their 
Master and asked Him why He always spake 
to the people in parables? And the Master 
answered them as follows : " Because it is given 



11 Christ Teaching by Parables." 137 

unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom 
of Heaven, but to them it is not given." 

The meaning of it is that He used parables 
for two reasons. One was to help those who 
really wished to learn from Him, to understand 
what He was teaching. The other was that 
those who were not willing to be taught, might 
listen to Him without understanding what 
He was saying. These people had heard Him 
when He was teaching without parables, but 
instead of being grateful to Him for coming to 
teach them, and of being willing to do what He 
wanted them to do, they found fault with His 
teaching, and would not give heed to what He 
said. 

Now, there is a great difference in the way 
in which we are to learn what the Bible teaches 
us about God and heaven, and the way in which 
we learn other things. 

We must be willing to be taught and willing 
to obey, if Ave wish to understand what Jesus, 
" The Great Teacher," has to tell us. 

He uses parables among His disciples in or- 
der that He might help them to understand, and 
remember what He taught them. 

We have a great many of the parables of Je- 



138 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

sus in the Gospels. There are not less than 
fifty, and it is impossible to speak of all of 
them in a Life of Christ. We, therefore, can 
only make a selection as specimens of this kind 
of teaching. 

First — We have Christ's estimate of " True 
Keligion," as represented in the Parable of 
the Treasure Hid in the Field. 

The Saviour spoke and said : " The Kingdom 
of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; 
which, when a man hath found, he hideth, and 
for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he 
hath, and buyeth that field." 

The words, " Kingdom of Heaven," are used 
by our Saviour in different senses. Sometimes, 
as here, they mean the grace of God, or true 
religion. And what Jesus teaches us by this 
parable is that true religion is more valuable 
than anything else in the world. 

Again. — " The Kingdom of Heaven is like to 
a merchant seeking goodly pearls, who, when 
he had found one pearl of great price, went 
his way, and sold all that he had, and bought 
it." 

By this " pearl of great price " Jesus meant 
true religion, as he did by the " treasure hid in 



11 Christ Teaching by Parables." 139 

the field." Both these parables teach us the 
great value of true religion. 

Christ's revelations concerning the joys of 
heaven are delightful. " Rejoice and be glad, 
for great is your reward which is in heaven." 
And to these revelations of the Saviour an apos- 
tle adds : " Eye hath not seen, ear hath not 
heard, or the heart of man cannot conceive the 
joys which God hath prepared for those who 
love Him." And yet the eye of man has seen 
many beautiful things here on earth, from the 
starry firmament, that most magnificent work 
of God, to the smiling earth with its plains and 
forests, hills and vales, its mountains, rivers 
and oceans. 

His ear had heard much delicious har- 
mony, from the warbling of the birds in the 
summer foliage to the majestic peal of the thun- 
der. 

His heart has throbbed responsive to many 
joys> from the paternal embrace to the sooth- 
ing kindness of a friend, from the simplest 
emotion of pleasure to the purest and loftiest 
sentiment following a good action; but still 
it is said by One that cannot err, that neither 
" eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it en- 



140 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

tered into the heart to conceive the entrancing 
joys of heaven.'' 

After that, Jesus might well invite men to 
raise their eyes to heaven, and put forth every 
effort to secuie such a place of rest and gran- 
duer. The Master said : " Strive to enter in, 
work while it is yet day, for the night cometh 
when no man can work." 

The Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins 
represents the union of God with the elect. 
The Five Wise Virgins made ready for the 
coming of the bridegroom ; the Five Foolish 
Virgins made no preparations and were shut 
out from the feast. 

The Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard. 
— This parable represents life as a day which is 
given us to accomplish a certain task, and to 
earn certain wages. The parable teaches us 
that God's patience is so great that He waits 
even to the last hour ; but even infinite patience 
has its limits, and the man who neglects to do 
his allotted work may be left without wages. 

The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree. — Our 
Lord said: "A certain man had a fig tree 
planted in his vineyard and he came seeking 



" Christ Teaching by Parables." 141 

fruit thereon, but found none. And lie said 
to the tiller of the vineyard : ' Behold, these 
three years I came seeking fruit on this fig tree, 
and I find none. Cut it down, why doth it 
take up the ground ? ' The teaching of this 
parable is that we are represented as trees 
planted in a vineyard, and that we must bear 
fruit. 

A tree that bears no fruit, or otherwise bad 
fruit, is not worthy of a place in the vineyard ; 
it is cut down, and cast into the fire. 

The Parable of the Talents. — Here is a mar- 
velous figure of human life. It is that a cer- 
tain amount of capital has been placed in our 
hands by God in order that we may increase 
it, and that He will exact a strict account of 
its use. 

A certain man going into a far country 
called his servants and delivered to them his 
goods. To one he gave five talents, to another 
two, and to another one, and immediately he 
took his journey." 

The man who received the five talents went 
and traded with the same, and gained other 
five. And in like manner he that had received 
two gained other two. But he that had re- 



142 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

ceived the one talent, going his way digged in 
the earth and hid his Lord's money. After 
a long time the lord of those servants came and 
reckoned with them." 

He approved and commended the fidelity of 
the man who had received the five talents, and 
likewise the one who had received the two ta- 
lents; bnt the man who received the one talent 
the lord condemned for his slothfulness. 

The parable teaches us that God in giving 
unto us life, has confided precious talents to our 
care. All have received some kind of a talent 
or talents. God leaves us to make what use we 
choose of His gifts, but on His return He will 
demand a strict account of them, and we shall 
receive a proportionate reward for the faith- 
ful use which we make of our trust. 

The talents intrusted to us by God are the 
qualities of the heart, mind and body, and we 
are to develop those qualities — the physical, 
the intellectual, and the moral, so as to make 
them serviceable to the giver. 

Again. — Consider the Parable of the Prodi- 
gal Son. We read in St. Luke's Gospel that, 
"A certain man had two sons, and the younger 
son said unto his father, ' father, give me the 



" Christ Teaching by Parables." 143 

portion of goods that falleth to me/ and he di- 
vided unto them his living." 

The younger son was disobedient and un- 
grateful, lived as a prodigal, wasted his sub- 
stance, was reduced to beggary, and finally re- 
turned to the home of his father. How beau- 
tifully does this parable illustrate the love of 
Jesus Christ for lost sinners, and what a gra- 
cious welcome is given to all who truly repent 
and reform. 

That immortal parable, called the Parable of 
the Good Samaritan, is one of the most beau- 
tiful ever uttered by mortal lips, sotting forth 
the law of self-abnegation and genuine kind- 
ness. 

One day while Jesus was upon earth, a 
young lawyer came to Him with this question, 
" Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal 
life ? " Jesus referred him to the Ten Com- 
mandments. He then reduced them to two, 
and instructed him that if he kept them he 
could have that for which he was inquiring. 

But the young lawyer said : " Who is my 
neighbor ? " And Jesus answered by saying : 
"A certain man went down from Jerusalem to 
Jericho, he fell among thieves who robbed him, 



144 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

beat him, and left half-dead. The Priest 
passed bj without rendering the wounded man 
any help, likewise the Levite in the same man- 
ner; but a certain Samaritan came that way, 
and when he saw the poor wounded man lying 
there in that wounded condition, although he 
may be a Jew, and the Jews and the Samari- 
tans might have enmity existing between them, 
yet he pitied the man, went down to him, 
bound up his wounds, set him. on his beast, took 
him to an inn, and paid the fare," and Jesus 
asked the young lawyer the question, " which 
now of these three thinkest thou was neighbor 
to him that fell among the thieves ? " 

And he (the lawyer) said : " he that showed 
mercy on him." Then Jesus said unto him: 
" Go thou and do likewise." 

Thus Jesus of Nazareth taught the duty of 
kindness. This kindness we must show, not 
to our dear friends alone, but to our enemies, 
to those who despitefully use us, and say all 
manner of evil against us for righteousness , 
sake. 

Kindness may be denned as " lighting our 
neighbor's candle by our own," by which we lose 
nothing and impart something. One man has 



" Christ Teaching by Parables." 145 

kindness deep within him, and when the occa- 
sion comes the rind or shell is cracked, and the 
kernel is found. 

Such a man's heart, too long clouded, like 
a sun in a storm-muftied day, shoots through 
some opening rift, and glows for a period in 
glory. But there are other natures that are 
always cloudless. With them a cloud is the 
exception, shining is the rule. They rise ra- 
diant over the horizon; they fill the whole 
heavens with brightness, and all day long they 
overhang life, pouring down an undiminished 
flood of brightness and warmth. 

Among the Alps, when the day is done, and 
twilight and darkness are creeping over fold 
and hamlet in the valleys below, Mont Rosa 
and Mont Blanc rise up far above the darkness, 
catching from the retreating sun something of 
its light, flushed with rose-color, exquisite be- 
yond words, or pencil or paint, glowing like 
the Gate of Heaven. 

And so past favors and kindnesses lift them- 
selves up in the memory of noble natures, and 
long after the lower parts are darkened by 
neglect, or selfishness, or anger, former loves, 

high up: above all clouds, glow with divine ra- 
10 



146 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

diance and seem to forbid the advance of night 
any further. 

" Be kind to each other ! The night's coming on, 
When friend and when brother — perchance may be 

gone! 
Then 'midst our dejection, — how sweet to have earned 
The blest recollection — or kindness returned ! 
When day hath departed, — and memory keeps 
Her watch, broken-hearted, — When all She loved 
!" 



An English barrister was in the habit of 
visiting the hospitals, and on one occasion visited 
the bed of one of the very poorest of creatures, 
one of the lowest in ignorance and poverty. 
The barrister was a man of tender sensibilities, 
a man whose tender spirit radiated from his 
countenance, and as he sat down beside the 
poor man's bed he began to speak in tones of 
sympathy for the suffering man, and after 
speaking a few words he began to say something 
about Jesus of Nazareth, and he at once saw 
that the man's face began to twitch convulsive- 
ly. The muscles quivered, and at last the man 
hid his face in the bed clothes and burst into a 
violent flood of tears and sobbed aloud. 
' The barrister waited until this storm of grief 
was passed, and when the poor man was able to 



" Christ Teaching by Parables." 147 

speak he asked him, saying : " What is it that 
has so touched you? What can have moved 
you so much ? " 

And as well as the man could sob out he 
said : " Sir, you are the first man that ever 
spoke a kind word to me since I was born, and 
I can't stand it." 

Ah! that is so much like the touch of the 
Great Nazarene, when lie mingled amongst 
men, he was the antitype of the Good Samari- 
tan, and His life should be our constant ex- 
ample. 



148 The Life of Jesus Christ, 



CHAPTER XV. 

" THE TRANSFIGURATION/'' 

The Evangelists tells us that after six days 
He took with Him the three dearest and most 
enlightened of His disciples, and went with 
them up a lofty mountain, or, as St. Luke calls 
it, simply "the mountain." The supposition 
that the mountain intended was Mount Tabor 
has been engrained for centuries in the tradi- 
tion of the Christian Church. Others again 
have contended that it was Mount Hermon, the 
mount of Jewish poetry. St. Luke simply 
says : " the mountain/' and, whichever it was, 
it has received the sacred name of " The Holy 
Mountain." 

It was the evening hour when He ascended, 
and as He climbed the hill-slope with those 
three chosen witnesses, " the Sons of Thunder 
and the Man of Rock," doubtless a solemn 
gladness dilated his whole soul, sustained of the 
heavenly calm which that solitary communion 
with His Heavenly Father would afford Him. 



" The Transfiguration." 149 

There in that mountain solitude He knelt and 
prayed, and as He prayed He was elevated far 
above the toil and the misery of the world which 
had rejected Him. " Pie was transfigured be- 
fore them, and His countenance shone as the 
sun," and His garments became white as the 
dazzling snow-fields above them. He was 
wrapped in such an aureole of glistening bril- 
liance ; His whole presence breathed so divine 
a radiance, that the light, the snow, the light- 
ning, are the only things to which the Evangel- 
ist can compare that celestial lustre. And, lo! 
Two figures were by his side. 

While He prayed the fashion of His counte- 
nance is changed. The inner radiance shines 
through the serge and sackcloth of His incar- 
nate life, and for once they, " See Him as He 
is, — the brightness of the Father's glory and 
the express image of His person," and they 
wondered at the awful grandeur of the divinity 
which the Man of Sorrows possessed, but which 
He had veiled even from their vision until 
now. But, behold! There are two forms ap- 
pearing, whom, by some instinct or instruction, 
they know to be Moses and Elias; the one dis- 
embodied spirit, clothed for a time in some ma- 



1 50 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

terial vehicle; the other yet wearing the body 
of which he had cheated death, and who had 
" put on immortality " in the spirit world. 
There stood Moses and Elias talking with Jesus 
concerning " His decease at Jerusalem." And 
when the prayer is ended, the task accepted, 
then the full glory of heaven falls upon Him, 
and the testimony is borne to His everlasting 
Sonship and power — " Hear ye Him." 

In the darkness of the night, shedding an in- 
tense gleam over the mountain herbage, shone 
the gloried form of the Lord Jesus. Beside 
Him, in the flood of golden glory, were two well 
known men, and their conversation was audible 
and distinct. 

" And He was transfigured before them." It 
has been well observed that this was not the real 
Transfiguration. The mount but showed Him 
as He was. The actual Transfiguration was 
in the humiliation of the Incarnate life. He, 
essentially glorious, was " transfigured " into 
poverty and shame. But now, lest any linger- 
ing doubt should lurk in the minds of the 
apostles, which might make their future utter- 
ances falter, they see His glory; they had sus- 
pected it before. There was a heavenliness in 



" The Transfiguration." 151 

His teaching, a lustre from His miracles, and 
a brightness in His spotless life, which, amid 
the meanness, had betrayed the God; but here 
the inner Divinity shines forth through its 
fleshy covering, and the attesting Shechinah 
comes down in the encompassing cloud. 

And as the splendid vision began to fade, 
as the majestic visitants were about to be sepa- 
rated from their Lord, as their Lord Himself 
passed with them into the overshadowing 
brightness, Peter, anxious to delay their pre- 
sence, amazed, startled, transported, not know- 
ing what he said — not knowing that Calvary 
would be a spectacle infinitely more transcend- 
ent than Hermon, not knowing that the law and 
the prophets were now fulfilled, not fully know- 
ing that his Lord was unspeakably greater than 
the Prophet of Sinai and the avenger of Car- 
mel, exclaimed, " Rabbi, it is best for us to be 
here; and let us make Three Tabernacles, one 
for Thee, and one for Moses, and one for 
Elias." Jesus might have smiled at the naive 
proposal of the eager apostle, but it was not for 
Peter to construct the universe for his per- 
sonal satisfaction. He had to learn the meaning 
of Calvary no less than that of Hermon. 



152 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Not in cloud of glory or chariot of fire was 
Jesus to pass away from them, but with arms 
outstretched in agony upon the " accursed tree ; 
not between Moses and Elias, but between two 
thieves, who were crucified with Him on either 
side one." 

~No answer was vouchsafed to Peter's words, 
but even as he spake, a cloud — not a cloud of 
thick darkness as at Sinai — but a cloud of light, 
a Shechinah of radiance, overshadowed them, 
and a voice from out of it uttered, " This is 
My beloved Son ; hear Him." 

They fell prostrate and hid their faces on the 
grass. And as, awaking from the overwhelm- 
ing shock of that awful voice, they raised their 
eyes and gazed suddenly all around them, they 
found that all was over. 

The bright cloud had vanished. The light- 
ning-like gleams of shining countenances and 
dazzling robes had passed away; they were 
alone with Jesus, and only the stars rained their 
quiet lustre on the mountain slopes. 

At first they were afraid to rise or stir, but 
Jesus, their Master, as they had seen Him be- 
fore He knelt in prayer, came to them, touched 
them, said: "Arise, and be not afraid." 



" The Transfiguration." 153 

We now inquire into the purpose of the 
Transfiguration. What were the designs for 
which it was arranged, and the lessons which it 
was intended to impress ? 

The first and great design, as we have al- 
ready intimated, was the solemn inauguration 
of Christ as the Supreme Law-giver in His 
Church. This was the " honor and glory " 
which He received of the Father, as the apostle 
distinctly declares. The exposition of the whole 
transaction then, is in " the voice from 
Heaven." 

After Moses had received his commission 
he prophesied of a greater than himself. " The 
Lord thy God will raise up to thee a prophet 
from the midst of thee, of thy brethren like un- 
to me; unto Him ye shall hearken." And on 
this solemn occasion was the promise ful- 
filled. If you will keep this idea in mind you 
will see the fitness of the appearance of Moses 
and Elias, rather than any other of the Old 
Testament saints. 

They were the representatives of the law and 
the prophets; the two great authorities of tho 
Jewish Church; the rigid jurists who upheld, 



154 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

in all its strictness, the rubical exactitude of 
the law. 

There was strong contention among the ear- 
ly Church, many of whose members believed 
that the ceremonial and moral laws should be of 
equal force forever; and the apostles, in the 
First Council, were to legislate on matters af- 
fecting the Church's spiritual freedom from the 
yoke of ancient observance. 

But only He who anointed the Law-giver 
could supersede Him. The same authority 
which enacted the law must be the power to re- 
voke its provisions. This authority was here 
given — given in the presence of the man by 
whose lips the former law was spoken, and of 
the man by whom it was championed, when de- 
generate Israel had forgotten it. The voice 
from the cloud for the confirmation of the 
words of Christ, just as at His baptism it had 
spoken in acceptance of His person. The ser- 
vants were henceforth to stand aside. They 
had done their work, and done it well ; but they 
were not needed now, and on the crest of the 
mountain they were to render up their com- 
mission to the Son. 

In the last chapter of Malachi they appear, 



" The Transfiguration." 155 

Moses and Elias, closing up the old covenant. 
In the 17th chapter of Matthew they appear in 
the installment of the new. It is not a little 
remarkable that the circumstances attendant 
upon the giving of the law furnish almost a 
parallel to the circumstances of the Transfigu- 
ration, in which that early law-giver was super- 
seded by a higher. 

Aaron, and JSTadab, and Abihu, instead of 
Peter, James and John; Mount Sinai instead 
of the Mount in Galilee. The face of Moses 
shining with reflected glory, instead of the in- 
dwelling brightness radiating from the Incar- 
nate Son. 

With these points of difference there was 
the same pomp of legislation, the same solem- 
nity of utterance, and the same glorious and 
encompassing cloud. The conclusion of the 
marvelous scene answers to all the rest, like 
the stamp of the signet-ring, sealing and con- 
firming the whole. 

When the fainting disciples recovered con- 
sciousness and looked around, " they saw no 
man save Jesus only." Moses and Elias had 
been aforetime the objects of their devoutest 



156 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

reverence, the recognized teachers whom they 
felt bound to follow. 

Where are they now ? They have renounced 
all claims to empire. They retire willingly 
from the field. There is but One Royal Law- 
giver. There must be no division of authori- 
ty, no admixture of legislative claim. Jesus 
only, reigning in unchallenged lordship over 
each heart and mind. 

Christ is the Law-giver to His church for all 
time. 

Prophets and apostles; they are valuable 
because they give to us transcripts of Christ. 
Holy men and confessors; we rejoice in them 
because they give to us transcripts of Christ — 
Laws, decretals, confessions, catechisms, creeds; 
we accept them only as they are embodiments 
of the words of Jesus Christ. 

Let a thousand rubrics or canons condemn 
what Christ hath not condemned, we may snap 
them as Samson the withes with which they 
sought to bind him. Let a thousand enact- 
ments inforce what Christ hath forbidden, and 
disobedience becomes a Christian duty, and 
brave death were preferable to life unworthy 
and dishonored. 



" The Transfiguration." 157 

" Jesus Only." — ~No surrender of personal 
thought or freedom; no binding of the con- 
science with the scorpion yoke of a consistory, 
or the binding of a man who, " as God sitteth 
in the temple of God." 

" Jesus Only ! " — Then rejoice in your free- 
dom, and in all matters of perplexed mediation 
" appeal " directly unto Caesar. 

Listen submissively to the faintest syllable 
from the lips which cannot err. Render hom- 
age more dutiful and willing than you have 
ever rendered yet. 

Our souls exult and proclaim that there is 
but one authoritative Teacher; and just as one 
fond spot in landscape, hallowed by some ten- 
der or pensive memory, may fasten the gazer's 
eye until he is insensible to the charms of 
woodland and waterfall, and copse and spire, 
so we, waking in bewildered trance and dim 
memories of shining visitants on the Holy 
Mount, seek not for accessories and backgrounds 
to the picture which fills the soul and fastens 
the eye — we see " No man save Jesus Only." 

We cannot help thinking, however, that the 
Transfiguration must be regarded also as the 



158 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

solemn baptism of the Saviour into His priest- 
ly and mediatorial office. 

The great purpose of the Incarnation was the 
offering upon the Cross. They who do not keep 
this in mind fall grievously short in their com- 
prehension of the mystery. 

It is not enough to explain the Incarnation 
as designed only for the spiritual teaching, or 
for the loving miracles, or the exhibition of 
the illustrious and perfect pattern. These 
were all collateral and subsidiary. They are 
not unimportant, any of them. 

It is necessary that we should learn God's 
will from the lips of Him who was authorized 
to declare it. The Saviour's teaching was glo- 
rified by the dying, and the miracles were the 
smaller illustrations of that mercy whose 
heart in sacrifice, and the " obedience was an 
obedience unto death." This was the " Father's 
business," which he had offered, and was em- 
bodied to do. For the accomplishment of this 
end " it behooved Christ to suffer," and there 
was not a moment of His incarnate life, whether 
He taught in synagogues or prayed on hillside 
altars, or rested at Bethany, when this purpose 
was absent from His mind. 



" The Transfiguration." 159 

It will not be uninteresting to remember the 
history of the heavenly voices attesting the mis- 
sion of Jesus Christ during His earthly stay. 
"This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased." 

And Again. — " Now is My soul troubled, and 
what shall I say? Father, save me from this 
hour? But for this cause came I unto this 
hour. Father, glorify Thy name." Then 
came there a voice from heaven saying, " I 
have both glorified it, and will glorify it again." 
Midway between these voices spake the one up- 
on the Holy Mount at the Transfiguration — 
" This is My beloved Son; hear Him." 

Not only, therefore, do we witness on the 
Holy Mount the installation of the Royal Law- 
giver, but the great High Priest. 

It is a grand valedictory service in which 
ITe is re-ordained to duty — as the banners are 
blrssed before the army marches to the field. 
And the voice speaks from heaven as a sove- 
reign gives audience to a chosen commander, 
and -cheers with the encouragement of royal 
favor. 

With what reverence and pleasure should we 
look upon the scene! As we see Him standing 



160 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

alone upon the mountain — fresh from His or- 
dination of glory — calm, and kingly in His 
heaven-imparted strength; and then as we see 
Him with firm step, treading the dark avenue 
which, through desertion, agony, insult, aban- 
donment, terminates in His death upon the 
Cross; surely all distrust should vanish, and 
all doubting disappear. 

It hardly comes within our scope to educe 
the various lessons which may be taught us in 
the Holy Mount. Our aim, very imperfectly 
fulfilled, has been to elicit the meaning of the 
great event of the Transfiguration, if happily 
some of its thoughts may linger in our hearts — 
like chimes heard within doors — softened by 
the silence and comfort in which we sit and 
hear them, and ringing on, long after the ac- 
tual sound has ceased, in the melody of each 
remembered tone. We can but suggest how, 
when we have recovered from the thrilling con- 
sequent upon the glorious vision, we might 
learn much of collateral instruction and bless- 
ing. 

First. — We might leam, for example, " The 
Immortality of the Soul," from the real ap- 
pearance of two men, who had long ceased to 



11 The Transfiguration." 161 

be inhabitants of this earth, again revisiting 
the scenes of earth! 

Second. — We might learn, " The Conscious 
existence of the spirit after its separation from 
the body, that it does not sleep, as some affirm, 
through many ages, but is possessed of intel- 
lectual vigor, and, in the case of the righteous, 
of a residence in glory." 

Third. — We might learn that " Christ Cruci- 
fied is the grand theme of Contemplation and 
Converse, both to believing hearts on earth and 
to the ransomed spirits of the sky." 

Fourth. — We might learn that " God pre- 
pares for coming trial by special manifestations 
of His favor, and though we may fear as we 
' enter into the cloud/ we shall come out of it 
with manlier hearts and truer courage." 

Fifth. — Those who are not, alas ! partakers of 
Christ, might learn, and shudder as they learn, 
the value of that Divine communion from which 
they sinfully exclude themselves, and of that in- 
heritance of glory which they so scornfully but 
aside. 

Those who have believed, and rejoice in 
mountain fellowship with Jesus, might learn 
that, refreshing as is the difficult air, bracing as 



162 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

is the steep ascent, rare and elevating as is the 
glorious companionship, we must not " build 
our tabernacle there." 

In the valley below there is work for us to do, 
and we must hear our Master's voice as He asks 
us to descend, and lead us down into the great 
field of toil and travail and triumph : 

" Think not of rest, though dreams be sweet. 
Start up and ply your heavenward feet. 
Is not God's oath upon your head ? 
Ne'er to sink back on slothful bed, 
Never again your loins untie, 
Nor let your torches waste and die, 
Till, when the shadows thickest fall, 
Your Master's midnight call. 
He calls you angels — be your strife 
To live on earth the angels' life." 



44 Striking Characteristics." 163 



CHAPTER XVI. 



CHRIST. 

Nearly all the statements made by the four 
Evangelists cluster in and around the face, 
form, and bearing, and actions of Jesus. The 
word " character/' as applied to Jesus' is a mis- 
nomer, as it is often confounded with the word 
" Reputation." 

Character seems generally to mean something 
outstanding from the person — a kind of dress 
worn outwardly; at least a faint index to the 
qualities within. Thus, to say of a man, " he 
has a good moral character," is to say little. 
You still ask, what is he ? What is the nature 
of his being? It is of Christ's being, not His 
character, that we would speak. The com- 
pany of the disciples in the " Acts," have an- 
swered, as by anticipation, all questions about 
Christ's being when they speak of "A Holy 
Child— a Divine Child."' 



164 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

He seems still to sit " among the doctors, both 
hearing them and asking them questions," while 
the j, like the sheaves of Joseph's brethren, are 
compelled to bow down before Him. 

His sermons and discourses, while they pos- 
sess no logical sequence, yet His words flow 
up, in irregular yet calm succession, from the 
depth below. And yet all He says is " like an 
angel, vital everywhere," and each word is a 
complete whole. 

Like jewels from a croAvn, the sentences drop 
dow r n entire. He says : " Ye are the salt of the 
earth. Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven 
is perfect." But wmolesomeness belonged to 
more than Christ's w-ords, it belonged to Him- 
self and to His words, because they faithfully 
and fully represented Himself, even as the 
acorn carries in it the figure of the oak. 

He was complete, and His possession of all 
the virtues was signified by the calm which 
reigned over and inclosed them within it. His 
eye concentrated all the rays of the Divine Om- 
niscience into its mild and tearful orb. His 
heart was a miniature ocean of love. His arm 
seemed the symbol of Omnipotence. His voice 
was invested with supreme authority. " In 



11 Striking Characteristics." 165 

Him dwelt the fulness of the God-head bodily, 
as a willing tenant, not as a reluctant captive." 
But, as a man, as well as the Incarnation of 
the God-head, He was perfect. 

Beside the stately, ancient, and noble forms 
of the patriarch's of the old world, He seems 
young and slender. He spake not, like Solo- 
mon, on trees, from the cedar on Lebanon, to 
the hyssop which springeth out of the wall. 
He had no Sinai for pedestal, as Moses had. 
He had not the mighty speech of Isaiah. But 
He possessed what all these wanted — He pos- 
sessed perfection. 

He was only a child, but He was a Celestial 
Child ; He was only a lamb, but it was a Lamb 
without spot and without blemish. 

In Him as God-Man, all contrasts and con- 
tradictions were reconciled. 

You hear Him now in tones soft as youthful 
love, preaching concord to His disciples ; and 
again, in voice of thunder, and with the ges- 
tures of an avenger, denouncing the Pharisee 
and scribe. 

Hear yonder Infant weeping in the manger 
of Bethlehem. That little trembling hand is 
the hand of Him who made the world ; that fee- 



i66 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

ble cry is the voice of Him who spake, and it 
was done — who commanded and it stood fast. 
See that carpenter laboring at Nazareth! The 
penalty of Adam's sin is standing on his brow 
in the sweat-drops of his toil. That carpenter 
is all the while directing the march of innu- 
merable suns, and supplying the wants of innu- 
merable worlds. 

Behold yonder Weeper at the grave of Laza- 
rus. His tears have a voice of eloquence. That 
Weeper is the Eternal God, who shall wipe 
away all tears from off all faces. 

See again, that Wonder-worker, and that Ma- 
jestic Teacher, whose works and words are felt 
in every age, and will continue for all time, and 
the results pass on into eternity. 

Again. — " The reticence of Jesus is one of 
the most remarkable of His characteristics." 

What He might have told us, in comparison 
with what He has, of Man, of God, of the Fu- 
ture of the Earth, of the Eternal State ! 

" He knew what was in man." " The Son 
only knoweth the Father." " Thou, Lord, 
knowest all things." But He was silent. Nor 
was His silence forced and reluctant. It was 



" Striking Characteristics." 167 

wise and willing. It seemed natural to Him 
as is the twinkling silence of the stars. This 
marvelous silence surrounded Him with a 
peculiar grandeur. The greatest objects in the 
universe are the stillest. The ocean has a 
voice, but the sun is silent. The seraphim 
sing, the Shechinah is dumb. The forests mur- 
mur, but the constellations speak not. Aaron 
spoke, but the face of Moses shone with glory. 
Jesus, like a sheep before her shearers, was 
dumb in death; but still more marvelous was 
the Self-denial and God-like silence of His life. 
The secret of this silence lay partly in the prac- 
ticalness of His purpose. He had three great 
things to do in the space of three years, and He 
could spare no time for doing or talking about 
aught else. 

First. — He had to preach a pure morality. 

Second. — He had to live a pure life. 

Third. — He had to die a death of substitu- 
tion so vast as to stop the motion of the universe 
until it was accomplished. 

This was the full baptism av herewith He 
was baptized. He was straitened till it was ac- 
complished, lie bent His undivided energies 
to finish this three-fold work, and He finished 



168 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

it. He led a life — and such a life ! — of pover- 
ty and power, of meanness and grandeur, of 
contempt and glory, of contact with sinners 
and of personal purity; a life from Whom de- 
mons shrank in terror, round which men 
crowded in eager curiosity, and over which an- 
gels stooped in wonder and love; a life which 
gathered about the meek current of its benevo- 
lence the fiery chariots and fiery horses of all 
miraculous gifts and all divine energies. 

And having thus lived, He came purged as 
by fire, to the death which seemed to have bor- 
rowed materials of terror, from earth, heaven 
and hell, to bow down along with its own burden 
upon His solitary head. But to humble ITim 
to submission, the "fearful load of Calvary was 
not required. He was humble all along life's 
journey, and never more so than when working 
His miracles. 

But this lowliness was mingled with sweet 
gentleness. The chief scene for the exercise 
of this exceeding gentleness was the compaiiy of 
publicans and sinners. The sight of personified 
purity mingled with the greatest of sinners, 
with condescension, blame, hope and pity ex- 



" Striking Characteristics." 169 

pressed in His countenance, instead of disgust 
and horror, was touching beyond the reach of 
tears. 

Let the moon, looking full in upon the group 
of evil-doers, at once rebuking, softening, and 
spiritualizing the scene, so at Simon's table 
shone on the sinners around, the shaded orb of 
the Kedeemer's face, and it seemed as if heaven 
were dimly dawning upon the unholy company. 

And yet, with this mildness, there was 
blended a certain " Ineffable Dignity." The 
dignity of a child approaches the sublime. It 
is higher than the dignity of a king — higher, 
because less conspicuous. This dignity blend- 
ing purity with unconsciousness, was united in 
Christ to that which attends knowledge and 
power. It was this which made the people ex- 
claim, that " He taught with authority ; " that 
wrung from the Roman officers sent to appre- 
hend Him the testimony that, " Never man 
spake like this man." 

A dignity this which deserted Him not, even 
when He wore the scarlet robe, and carried the 
reed for a sceptre, and the thorns for a crown; 
nay, which transfigured these into glorious em- 



170 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

blems in the blaze of spirit which shone around 
Him. 

Again. — " Superiority of knowledge and 
power was a distinguishing feature of Jesus 
of Nazareth." Pride cannot, indeed, co-exist 
with perfect knowledge and power, for it im- 
plies as certainly something above, as well as 
something below it. 

The proud man looks up as well as down, 
measuring himself with what is beyond, as well 
as what is beneath him. 

But this superiority in our Blessed Lord was 
only a part of that unconsciousness which so 
signally characterized Him. 

He seemed conscious of God only. He over- 
flowed with God, and could say without a 
tremor, " I and My Lather are One. He that 
hath seen me hath seen the Lather." This is 
all that we ca^ conceive of absorption into the 
Deity. This Jesus of Nazareth spoke as God, 
and His matchless voice gave no uncertain 
sound. 

Many of the sayings of Jesus would have been 
sheer presumption, if uttered by a man devoid 
of all consciousness of indwelling divinity. 
Yes, more! It would have been arrogance, in- 



11 Striking Characteristics." 171 

consistent with either humility or holiness, for 
any mere human being to assume such preroga- 
tives as Jesus took to Himself. 

Divine, indeed! for if any man doubt His 
claim to the title, let him pass from Christ's 
pictures of earth to His aspirations after 
heaven ; let him hear the musical voice amid the 
storm as He drew near to the shores of eternity 
and His Father's house. 

The last words of Jesus are surcharged with 
feeling for His disciples, forgiveness to His 
enemies, and desire after renewed communion 
with His Father. His soul springs up as He 
sees His Father's throne in view. A smile of 
triumph rests, as by anticipation, upon His lips. 
" Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world." 
His last command is, " That ye love one an- 
other;" His last legacy is, "Peace." He is 
going to the Father, but leaving the Comforter, 
and promising to return again ; and, ere going, 
He breaks out into a prayer which, ere it closes, 
seems to bind in one chain of glory earth and 
heaven, Himself, His father, and His people. 
" That glory which Thou gavest Me I have 
given them ; that they may be one, even as wo 
are One. Father, I will that they also whom 



172 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Thou hast given Me be with Me where I am; 
that they may behold My glory." 

This prayer seems to be the conscious link 
of the spiritual world — the living bond between 
the Father and His children. 

The Father can never on earth come nearer 
to us than through His Son; we can never get 
nearer to the Father than through the Son. 

Jesus has passed up every step of the ladder, 
from the child to the deity, from the manger 
to the throne. He looked into the dim eyes of 
the poor, and saw therein the image of the 
Father. 

Herod became grave in His presence. Pilate 
washed his hands from the shadow of the blood. 
Peter wept when he saw the face of his Master, 
and Judas went out and destroyed himself when 
he thought of his Lord. Angels ministered to 
him, the grave was ashamed to hide His body; 
the earth opened its doors and gave up its dead ; 
and heaven sent forth all its guards, and opened 
all its gates to receive Him into its bosom, to be 
exalted, glorified, and worshipped by all the 
hosts of heaven. 

Thus faintly have we sought to depict the 
character and the grandeur of the Man of Naz- 



" Striking Characteristics." 173 

aretli. Scripture writers did not, nor need we 
do it. They never say in so many words that 
Christ was eloquent, nor very wise, nor very 
humble, nor very holy. 

But they record His sermon on the Mount; 
they register His tears at the tomb of Lazarus, 
and they tell of His washing His disciples' feet. 
We have no new facts to record of Him, but only 
to say of that life so marvellous, yet humane, 
" It is finished." " It is finished." It is unique ! 
It is glorious! 



174 The Life of Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 



In the midst of the last week of our Lord's 
life on earth, hefore His crucifixion, and during 
what is known as " Passion Week/' one of the 
interesting things that Jesus did was to keep the 
" Jewish Passover." This Passover feast had 
been kept by the Jews every year for nearly 
1,500 years. It was the most solemn religious 
service they had. It was first observed by them 
in the night on which their nation was delivered 
from the bondage of Egypt, and began their 
march towards the promised land of Canaan. 
We read about the establishment of this solemn 
service in the book of Exodus, 12th chapter. It 
was a memorable deliverance wrought out for 
the children of Israel. Think of a land retiring 
to slumber under the threat of a terrible destruc- 
tion; some of its dwellers unconscious, some 
scornful, others apparently heedless; but 
troubled by a strange misgiving, and in the mid- 



" The Lord's Supper." 175 

night hour, when all the world was still, hark ! 
That frantic wail resounding through the mid- 
night air, rising in simultaneous sorrow from 
palace, and from mansion, and cottage ; rich and 
poor touched into fellowship by the great level- 
ler, trouble, and amid the glare of torches and 
the tramp of hasty feet, each cheek blanched into 
an ashen paleness, and on each lip the same 
dread words of agony. 

Gradually the knowledge is gathered that the 
destruction is a common one, and that from 
every dwelling the fondest and most treasured 
had departed, for " throughout the whole land 
there was not an Egyptian house in which there 
was not one dead." 

Well might there be " a cry in Egypt, such 
as there was none like it, nor shall there be any 
more." But see in the land of Goshen, those 
dwellings w T hose door-posts are sprinkled with 
blood ; dwellings which the proud sons of Egypt 
would have scorned to enter; dwellings of 
menials and slaves, but within them on that 
night of disaster there is no bleeding heart, nor 
one beloved one slain; but everywhere songs of 
thanksgiving and joy. 

God had set His token upon those dwellings 



176 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

of Israel ; they are the Lord's favored ones, and 
as He passed them by the avenging angel smiled. 
See them thrust out in haste, enriched with the 
spoil of their oppressors ; driven into liberty be- 
fore the blast of a nation's fear ; leaving the 
land of bondage behind them, pitching their 
tents as freemen, and do you wonder that their 
hearts should feel and voices sing, " It is a 
night to be observed unto the Lord." 

This was the memory uppermost in the minds 
of the disciples when the Saviour " took bread 
and blessed it, and brake it, and gave to them ; " 
and though the veil was on their hearts just then, 
so that they knew not the full significance of the 
act, nor comprehended the grandeur of their 
Master's mission, in after time, when they had 
been schooled in the upper-room, and shared in 
the baptism of Pentecost, they would under- 
stand it better, and would see, as we see in the 
light of a perfected revelation, how fitly on the 
night of the Passover was instituted the mem- 
orial of deliverance from a bondage greater than 
Egyptian, and from the deadlier perils of a 
death that never dies ? 

But if the minds of the disciples were filled 
with thoughts of the Passover and its great sal- 



" The Lord's Supper." 177 

vation, what were the thoughts of the Redeemer ? 
lie was just entering within the shadow of His 
Passion. There stretched out before His con- 
scious eye the whole course of suffering which 
He had set Himself bravely to travel. His be- 
trayal, His arrest, the garden, the judgment hall, 
the cross, the sepulchre, then the drear and 
lonely time of desertion by the Father, that most 
terrible of all possible endurance, all these were 
before Him, and distinct and near. 

He saw the approach of the great sorrow. 
" It was the same night on which He was be- 
trayed." It was the " Last Supper " table. 

He gazed with ineffable tenderness upon His 
disciples whom He had chosen, and who were 
so soon to be orphaned of His love. 

He knew them, save the betrayed, to be true 
at heart though infirm of purpose, and earthly 
in conception, and dazzled with high imaginings 
of a temporal kingdom. " With desire," then 
broke out the strong affection which many waters 
could not quench. " With desire I have desired 
to eat this Passover with you before I suffer," 
a? if He had said, " My time is at hand, I can 
no longer delay the completion of My solemn 
purpose. I go to My Father and ye see Me no 
12 



178 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

more, yet a little while and I must die ! " This 
is the Passover. Ye have been remembering its 
deliverance, but ye will soon have a tender mem- 
ory. " Take, eat this bread, it is My body," soon 
to be broken for sinners. Take, drink this wine, 
it is " the New Testament in My blood." For- 
get Me not when ye no longer see Me. " This 
do in remembrance of Me." 

Such is the account we have of the first estab- 
lishment of " the Lord's Supper." It was to 
take the place of the " Jewish Passover," and 
to be observed by the followers of Christ all over 
the earth, until the time when He shall come 
again to receive His saints. 

And this solemn sacrament, this holy com- 
munion, this supper of our Lord, ought to be 
observed, or kept, by all who love Him. First, 
" Because He commands it." " This do in re- 
membrance of Me." This commandment is 
plain, positive, and authoritative. " This do." 
And the meaning of what he says is, " This do," 
all ye who profess to be My followers, all over 
the world, and through all ages. And this is 
one of the commandments He expects all His 
people to keep. " If ye love Me, keep My com- 
mandments." 



44 The Lord's Supper." 179 

" This do." No matter whether we wish to 
do it or not ; here are our Master's words, " This 
do." No matter whether we see the use of it 
or not : Jesus says, " This do." It is enough for 
each follower of the Lord Jesus to say, " Here is 
My Lord's command, and I must obey." 

The second reason why we ought to " do this " 
is because of its connection with the memory of 
His sufferings. We are taught this by the 
word " remembrance " which our Saviour here 
uses. 

He says, " This do in remembrance of My 
sufferings for you." And this is the most im- 
portant word used by Jesus when He established 
this sacrament. In the study of music, there is 
always one special note in a tune, which is called 
the key-note, 

The sacrament of " the Lord's Supper " is 
like a solemn song ; and the key-note of the music 
to which the song is set is the word " remem- 
brance." It teaches us that the Sacrament of 
the Lord's Supper is a " memorial service." In 
it is shown " the Lord's death till He come 
again." His death, not His life, though that 
was lustrous with a holiness without the shadow 
of a stain. 



180 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

His death, not His teachings, though that em- 
bodied the fulness of a wisdom that was divine. 
His death ! Still His death ! Grandest and 
most consecrating memory both for earth and 
heaven. 

When He broke the bread, and gave it to His 
disciples, saying, " This is My body, which is 
given for you/' it was intended as a memorial of 
His suffering. And when He gave them the 
cup, and said, " This is My blood of the Xew 
Testament," He meant that we should under- 
stand Him as saying, " This is the memorial of 
My blood." 

Third reason : " Jesus has connected this sac- 
rament with the hope of His coming glory." 
This sacrament of the Lord's Supper is the point 
of the meeting between the sufferings of Christ 
and the glory that was to follow, between His 
cross, with its shame and anguish, and His king- 
dom with its honor and blessedness. 

It is prophetic. It leads the minds of the dis- 
ciples to the great marriage supper of the Lamb, 
and a voice from heaven declares, " Blessed are 
they who are called to the marriage supper of 
the Lamb." That marriage supper represents 
the highest joys of heaven. It gathers into itself 



" The Lord's Supper." 181 

all the glory and happiness that awaits Hia 
people in the heavenly kingdom. 

Besides this sacramental service is the type, 
or shadow, of all the bliss connected with that 
great event in the future. 

If we are true and faithful partakers of this 
solemn sacrament, this memorial feast, we shall 
certainly be among the number of those whose 
unspeakable privilege it will be to sit at the mar- 
riage supper of the Lamb in the heavenly king- 
dom. 

There we shall be in the personal presence of 
Jesus, our glorified Lord ; our eyes " shall see 
the King in His beauty." 

Hence the " Lord's Supper " confirms the 
two things which it exhibits, namely, " The 
atonement and the second coming of the Lord." 

It links the humiliation and the royalty, the 
scornful trial and the session of judgment, the 
accomplished past and the assured future, to- 
gether. It is the Lord's sign on earth, as the 
sun is in the heavens. It is the wedlock of the 
believer's memory and hope. Memory which 
lingers round the cross, hope which already re- 
vels in the glory of the throne. " This do in 
remembrance of Me." 



182 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Here in the sacrament is the rainbow of the 
new and better covenant, the ever-renewed 
pledge of salvation purchased, and strength im- 
parted, and blessing conferred on all believing 
souls. 

And as we covenant in this sacrament to give 
our all to God, He, the Infinite, in boundless 
condescension, stoops to whisper, " My light, My 
strength, My grace, My purity, My joy, My 
heaven, all are yours." 



"The Closing Scene." 183 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



THE END. 

Immediately after the institution of the 
" Lord's Supper," and when Judas, the traitor, 
had departed, Jesus opened His mind to His 
disciples, and such words as He then spoke to 
them were never uttered hy mortal man, never 
was farewell more tender or touching. 

It is the outpouring of His ardent love, re- 
vived, as it were, by the approaching separation, 
and passing direct from His heart into the hearts 
of His silent and sorrowing disciples. 

Not one of these divine words was forgotten 
by the beloved disciple John in penning his gos- 
pel, so deeply were they impressed upon his 
heart. What follows is only a portion of this 
memorable discourse, " Let not your heart be 
troubled. You believe in God, believe also in 
Me." As if He had said, " I leave you, it is 



184 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

true, but I only go to prepare a place in My 
Father's house. 

" I will not leave you orphans. I will come to 
you." " Before Ave separate, I give you this 
commandment, i That ye love one another as I 
have loved you.' I will not now call you serv- 
ants, but friends. Remain in Me, and I in you. 
I am the Vine; ye are the branches. A little 
while, and you shall not see Me. Peace I leave 
with you, peace I give unto you, and I will send 
you the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. Remember 
My w r ord that I said unto you: The servant is 
not greater than his lord ; if they have persecuted 
Me, they will also persecute you. In the world 
ye shall have tribulation, but have confidence, 
I have overcome the w T orld." Such was the 
Saviour's farewell. How many tears must the 
disciples have shed while listening to these part- 
ing words of the Lord, Who spake them then for 
the last time! 

Afterwards they saw Him raising His eyes to 
heaven, and heard Him saying : " Father, the 
hour is come; glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son 
may glorify Thee. I have glorified Thee upon 
the earth. I have finished the work which Thou 
gavest Me to do. I have manifested Thy name 



" The Closing Scene." 185 

to men, and now, glorify Thou " Me. O Father, 
with Thyself, with the glory which I had with 
Thee, before the world was." 

" Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, whom 
Thou hast given Me. Sanctify them in truth. 
And not for them only do I pray, but for those 
also who through their word shall believe in 
Me." 

Here He prayed for all mankind, that His 
word might not be frustrated, that His toils and 
His sufferings might not be without fruit ; " that 
they may be in Me as I am in Thee, and that 
they may be one as AYe are also one." 

For this am I come to establish perpetual 
love, eternal union between men and the Father. 

" Jesus then goes to the Mount of Olives: '* 

Jesus at length concluded this discourse, 
which He had protracted to some length, as 
though He found it difficult to leave His dis- 
ciples. He then departed and took His way 
towards the Mount of Olives. It was night; 
Jerusalem lay hushed and silent, darkness cov- 
ered the city and the mountain. The disciples 
walked on within a few paces of their divine 
Master without speaking a word. 

Their way led them through one of the city 



186 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

gates, down the steep sides of the ravine, across 
the stream Kedron, and up the green slope be- 
yond it. We are told but of one incident in that 
last and memorable walk through the midnight 
to the familiar garden of dark Gethsemane. It 
was a last warning to the disciples in general, to 
St. Peter in particular. It may be that the dim- 
ness, the silence, the desertion of their position, 
the dull echo of their footsteps, the agonizing 
sense that treachery was even now at work, was 
beginning already to make them afraid; sadly 
did Jesus turn and say to them that on that 
very night they should all be offended in Him, 
and the old prophecy should be fulfilled, " I will 
smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scat- 
tered abroad." And yet, in spite of all, as a 
shepherd would He go before them leading the 
way to Galilee. 

They all declared their love and loyalty to 
Him, but Peter was loudest and most sympa- 
thetic in his loyalty. Even if all should be 
offended, yet never would he be offended. 

And Jesus only listened in mournful silence 
to vows which should so soon be scattered into 
air. 

" Jesus goes into Gethsemane." So they 



" The Closing Scene." 187 

came to Gethsemane, which is about half a mile 
from the city walls. It is stated by the sacred 
writers that on going into the garden He left 
eight of His disciples at the entrance, and that 
He took with Him the chosen, favored three, 
Peter, James, and John, and went further into 
the garden. It is also said, that then He " began 
to be sorrowful, and very heavy," and He said, 
" My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto 
death." 

Then He withdrew from the three disciples, 
and there, alone with God, He bowed Himself to 
the earth, and prayed, saying, " O, My Father, 
if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." 
And after offering this earnest prayer, He re- 
turned to his disciples, and found them asleep, 
and said to Peter, " What ! could ye not watch 
with Me one hour ? Watch and pray that ye 
enter not into temptation." 

Then He went away again, " and being in 
agony He prayed more earnestly, and He sweat, 
as it were, great drops of blood falling down to 
the ground." In the depth of His agony, " there 
appeared unto Him an angel from heaven 
strengthening Him." 

We are not told what the angel said to Him. 



1 88 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

JSTo doubt he brought to Him some tender, loving 
words from His Father in heaven, to comfort 
and encourage Him. Jesus returned to His dis- 
ciples again, and found them sleeping, for their 
eyes were heavy. 

He then went away and prayed again, saying, 
" O, Father, if this cup may not pass from Mc 
except I drink it, Thy will be done." 

He returned the third time to His disciples 
and said, " Sleep on now and take your rest : 
Behold the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man 
is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let 
us go hence." 

And immediately after He had spoken these 
words, Judas appeared, and with him a band of 
men who came to take Him a prisoner. 

These are the facts told us by the evangelists 
respecting Jesus and His agony in Gethsemane. 
They are wonderful facts, and the scene which 
they set before us in our Saviour's life is one of 
the most solemn and awful that ever was wit- 
nessed in this old world. 

" The kiss of Judas." 

When Judas and the band of soldiers arrived, 
Jesus advanced to meet them, and said, " Whom 
seek ye ? " The question was not without an 



" The Closing Scene." 189 

object. It was asked, as John points out, to se- 
cure His apostles from molestation ; and we may 
suppose also that it served to make all who were 
present the witnesses of His arrest. 

" Whom seek ye ? " They answered, " Jesus 
of Nazareth." u I am He." While they stood 
cowering and struggling there, He again asked 
them, " Whom are ye seeking ? " Again they 
replied, " Jesus of Nazareth." " I told you," 
He answered, " that I am He. If, then, ye are 
seeking Me, let these go away." 

Judas then approached and kissed Him. This 
was the signal agreed npon. And Jesus looked 
at the traitor, and said : " Friend, whereto art 
thou come ? Judas, dost thou betray the Son 
of Man with a kiss ? " Then addressing the 
armed band, He said to them : " Are you come 
out, as it were, against a thief, with swords and 
staffs ? When I was daily with you in the 
temple, you did not stretch forth your hands 
against Me : But this is your hour, and the 
] lower of darkness." They then took hold of 
Jesus and bound Him. Peter, indignant at see- 
ing his Master thus roughly handled, drew a 
sword wherewith he had armed himself, through 
a wrong conception of his Master's words, and 



190 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

striking one of the servants of the high priest, 
cut off his ear. But Jesus rebuked him for his 
imprudent zeal. " Peter," said He, " put up thy 
sword into the scabbard. For all that take the 
sword shall perish by the sword. Thinkest thou 
that I cannot ask My Pather, and He will 
give Me more than twelve legions of angels? 
How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled ? " 
Seeing their Master in this condition, all the 
disciples deserted Him, and fled. 

" Can I Gethsemane forget?— or there thy conflict see. 
Thine agony and bloody sweat, — and not remember 
Thee ? 

Remember Thee, and all Thy pains, — and all Thy 

love to me ; 
Yes, while a breath, a pulse remains, — will I remember 

Thee. 

And when these failing lips grow dumb, 

And mind and memory flee 
When Thou shalt in Thy Kingdom Come, — Jesus, 
Remember Me." 



" Jesus Before Pilate." 191 



CHAPTEK XIX. 



We now come to a dark and sad chapter in 
the Life of Christ. We have seen how He 
was betrayed by one of His disciples, and for- 
saken by all the rest. Then how His enemies 
seized Him, and led Him away to be mocked and 
cruelly treated by the priests and rulers of the 
Jewish church. We speak of what then took 
place at the trial of Nazareth. 

But it was only the form, or mockery, of a 
trial. It was not conducted, at all, in the way 
which regular trials were required to be con- 
ducted among the Jews. The simple truth is 
that the enemies of Jesus had made up their 
minds to put Him to death, and they merely 
pretended to have a trial because they were 
afraid to do it without a trial. When the band 
of soldiers and servants had seized Jesus, and 
made Him prisoner, they led Him away to the 



192 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

lionse of Caiaphas. He was placed before 
Annas, the aged, dignified, ex-high priest, and 
before Caiaphas. 

The high priest gathered together the chief 
priests and other members of the Jewish high 
council, called the Sanhedrim. 

This was the highest court among the Jews. 
It was composed of seventy, or more properly 
seventy-two of the oldest, the most learned, and 
honorable men of the nation. The high priest 
was generally the president of this council. 

But, on special occasions, they met in the 
house of the high priest, as they did at that 
time. Jesus was brought before this council. 
Here they tried to bring some charges against 
Him for teaching false doctrine, or of doing 
something contrary to the laws of their churcl:. 
But though they had hired many false witnesses, 
their testimony did not agree, and they found 
it impossible to prove anything wrong against 
Him. 

Two witnesses looked more promising than 
the rest, testified as follows. One of them said : 
" That he heard Jesus say, I can destroy this 
temple ; " and another said, " That Jesus de- 
clared, I will destroy this temple." The fact 



"Jesus Before Pilate." 193 

was that He had said, " Destroy this temple, 
and I will build it again in three days." 

He simply suffered His false accusers and 
their false listeners to entangle themselves in 
the coil of their own lies, and the silence of the 
innocent Jesus atoned for the excuses of the 
guilty Adam. But that majestic silence 
troubled, thwarted, confounded, and maddened 
them. They felt, before that silence, as if they 
were the culprits, He the Judge. And as every 
poisoned arrow of their perjuries and lies fell 
harmless at His feet, as though blunted on the 
diamond shield of His white innocence, they be- 
gan to fear lest, after all, their thirst for His 
blood would go unslayed, and their whole plot 
fail. 

Were they thus to be conquered by the feeble- 
ness of their own weapons, without His stirring 
a finger, or uttering a word ? 

Then Caiaphas was overcome with fear and 
anger. Starting up from his judgment seat, 
and moving in their midst with a voice and 
an attitude Ave may well imagine! 

" Answerest Thou nothing ?" he exclaimed. 
" What is it that these witness against Thee ? " 
But still Jesus remained silent. 
13 



194 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Then, reduced to utter despair and fury, the 
false high priest, still standing as it were with 
a threatening attitude over his prisoner, ex- 
claimed, " I adjure Thee by the living God to 
tell us." What? Whether Thou are a sinner? 
Whether Thou hast secretly taught sedition ? 
Whether Thou hast openly uttered blasphemy ? 
]\ T o, but " Whether Thou art the Christ, the Son 
of God?" 

This was a strange question to a bound, de- 
fenseless, condemned prisoner; and a strange 
question from such a questioner, a high priest 
of the people ! To such a question Jesus could 
not be silent; on such a question He could not 
leave Himself open to misinterpretation. In 
the earlier days of His ministry He had kept the 
Messiahship in the background, but now, at this 
awful, decisive moment, when death was near, 
when humanly speaking, nothing could be 
gained, everything must be lost, by the avowal, 
there thrilled through all the ages, through all 
the present, and all the past, the solemn answer, 
" I am ; and ye shall see the Son of Man sitting 
on the right hand of power, and coming with 
the clouds of heaven." In that answer the 
thunder rolled, a thunder louder than at Sinai, 



" Jesus Before Pilate." 195 

though the ears of the Cynic and the Sadducee 
heard it not then, nor hear it now. 

Caiaphas exclaimed, " Blasphemy ! " " What 
further need have we of witnesses ? " What is 
your decision? 

And the confused multitude cried out, " He 
is a man guilty of death ; " and the second stage 
of the trial of Jesus was over. Then the priests, 
and other members of the council, seem to have 
gone home, leaving Jesus to the mockery and in- 
sults of the servants. 

As soon as morning was come the priests and 
scribes met again. They asked Him once more 
if He were the Christ, the Son of God. Again 
He declared that He was. Then they arose and 
led Him to Pilate, the Roman Governor, to se- 
cure his consent to put Him to death. 

" Jesus before Pilate." This was unlike the 
idle inquisition of Annas, the extorted confes- 
sion, the illegal decision of the Sanhedrin ; for 
here His judge was in His favor, who made an 
effort to deliver Him. This last trial is full of 
passion and movement. Tt involves a threefold 
change of scene, a threefold accusation, a three- 
fold acquittal by the Romans, a threefold rejec- 
tion by the Jews, a threefold warning to Pilate, 



196 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

and a threefold effort on his part to baffle the 
accusers, and set the victim free. It was prob- 
ably about seven o'clock in the morning that the 
imposing procession, consisting of Caiaphas and 
the members of the Sanhedrin conducted Jesus, 
with a cord round His neck, from the hall, in 
the presence of all the people, with hands bound, 
a spectacle to angels and to men. 

Pilate goes out to meet them, and, beholding 
the fierce passions of the accusers, and noting 
the meek ineffable grandeur of their victim, his 
question is sternly brief : " What accusation 
bring ye against this Man ? " 

The question took them by surprise. They 
answered, " If He were not a malefactor we 
would not have delivered Him up unto thee." 

" Very well," Pilate said, " take ye Him and 
judge Him according to your law." But this 
did not suit their purpose, and they said unto 
Pilate, " It is not lawful for us to put any man 
to death." 

It was written that Christ should die, not by 
Jewish stoning or strangulation, but by that 
Roman form of execution — crucifixion. 

" That the saying of Jesus might be fulfilled, 
which He spake, signifying what death He 



" Jesus Before Pilate." 197 

should die." The accusers dropped the present 
charge of blasphemy, which did not suit their 
purpose, they burst into a storm of invectives 
against Him, in which is seen the triple accusa- 
tions, that He perverted the nation, forbade to 
give tribute, and that He called Himself King. 

All of those charges were false, and the third 
all the more so because it included a grain of 
truth. Pilate leaves the impatient Sanhedrin 
and the raging crowd, and takes Jesus into the 
judgment hall to make inquiry upon the third 
charge only. 

St. John alone preserves for us the memorable 
scene. Jesus, though not " in soft clothing,'' 
though not a denizen of king's houses, had been 
led up the imposing stair-way, over the floors of 
marble, under gilded roofs, ceiled with cedar, 
and painted with gold. There amid such splen- 
dor, Pilate asking Jesus in pitying tones, " Art 
Thou the King of the Jews ? Thou poor, worn, 
tearstained outcast, in Thy peasant garments, 
with Thy hands bound, and marks of violence 
on Thy face, art Thou the King of the Jews ? " 

"Sayest Thou this of Thyself?" he an- 
swered with a'ontle dignity, "or did others 
tell it thee of Me ? " Pilate said, "Amla 



198 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Jew ? " " Thine own nation and the chief 
priests delivered Thee unto me. What 
hast Thou done?" " Done 2 " He might 
might have answered, " I have done works of 
wonder, and mercy, and power, and innocence, 
and these alone." Pilate still presses the ques- 
tion, " Art Thou a King then ? " Jesus an- 
swered, " Thou sayest that I am a King, to this 
end was I born, and for this cause came I into 
the world, that I should bear witness unto the 
truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth 
My voice." Pilate impatiently asked, " What 
is truth ? " 

And when he had said this, he went out again 
to the Jews, and saith unto them, " I find in 
Him no fault at all." 

Amid much confusion and passionate excla- 
mation the ear of Pilate caught the name " Gal- 
ilee," and he understood that Galilee had been 
the chief scene of the ministry of Jesus. 

Pilate seized the opportunity, and sent Jesus 
to Herod Antipas. And through the thronged 
and narrow streets, amid the jeering, raging 
multitude, the weary Sufferer was dragged once 
more. 

" Herod Antipas " was rejoiced beyond all 



" Jesus Before Pilate." 199 

tilings to see Jesus. He had heard much about 
Him, and he hoped to see some miracle per- 
formed by Him. Herod propounded many ques- 
tions to Jesus, but gained not so much as one 
syllable in reply. Our Lord confronted all his 
questions with the majesty of silence. For the 
second time Jesus is derided, derided this time 
as Priest and Prophet. 

Mocking His innocence and His misery, the 
wicked Herod sent Him back to Pilate. And 
now began the sixth and last, the most agonizing 
part of this terrible inquisition. 

Now was the time for Pilate to have acted in 
a clear and just manner, and saved himself for 
ever from the guilt of innocent blood. Pilate 
summoned the priests, the Sanhedrin, and the 
people before him, and told them that he had 
come to the conclusion that Jesus had committed 
no crime which deserved the punishment of 
death. And now came the golden opportunity 
for him to vindicate the grandeur of his coun- 
try's imperial justice, and, as he had pronounced 
Him absolutely innocent, to set Him absolutely 
free. 

But at exactly that point he wavered and tem- 
porized. " Whom shall I release unto you, this 



200 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

man, or Barabbas ? " said Pilate. The people 
persuaded by their priests clamored for the lib- 
eration of the robber, Barabbas. To him every 
hand was pointed; for him every voice was 
raised. For the holy, the harmless, the unde- 
fined, for Him Whom a thousand hosannas had 
greeted but five days before, no word of pity or 
pleading found an utterance. 

" He was despised and rejected of men." 
Pilate then said : " What then shall I do with 
Jesus ? " The infuriated cry went out, " Cru- 
cify Him ! Crucify Him ! " In vain did Pilate 
plead when he exclaimed, " Why, what evil hath 
He done ? " "I found no cause worthy of death 
in Him." But Pilate finally yielded to the 
frantic ravings of an Oriental mob, and said : 
" I will chastise Him, and let Him go." Such 
half -willed opposition was wholly unavailing. 

Again and again, with wilder and wilder 
vehemence they rent the air with their cries : 
" Away with this Man. Crucify Him ! Cru- 
cify Him ! Loose unto us Barabbas ! " Then 
Pilate delivered Jesus to be scourged. This 
scourging was the ordinary preliminary to cruci- 
fixion. 



" Jesus Before Pilate." 201 

It was a punishment so truly horrible, that 
the mind revolts at it ; and it has long been abol- 
ished by the compassion of mankind, by the 
gradual comprehension of Christian truth. 

The unhappy Sufferer was publicly stripped, 
was tied by the hands, fastened with his face to 
a pillar, and then, on the tense quivering nerves 
of the naked back, the blows were inflicted with 
leathern thongs, tipped with bone or lead, and 
uplifted with such terrible barbarity, that the 
victim would sink faint and exhausted to the 
ground. And this awful cruelty was followed 
immediately by the third and bitterest derision 
the derision of Christ as King. 

In the presence of this maddened mob they 
went through the heartless ceremony of a mock 
coronation, a mock investiture, a mock homage. 
And they saluted Him with, " Hail, King of the 
Jews!" 

Even now, at that stage of the proceedings, 
Pilate wished and hoped to save Him. And as 
Jesus came forth and stood before him with 
that martyr-form, with the marks of the suf- 
ing upon Him, there was a holy calm, a strange 
pre-eminence, a sacred nobleness, that Pilate 
broke forth with that involuntary exclamation 



202 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

which has thrilled with emotion millions of 
hearts, " Behold the Man ! " 

But the mob still cried out, " Crucify Him ! 
Crucify Him ! " Then Pilate in utter disgust 
said, " Take ye Him, and crucify Him, for T 
find no fault in Him." Strange admission from 
a Eoman judge! Once more Pilate leaves the 
assemblage, and takes Jesus with him into the 
quiet judgment hall, and asks II im again, 
" Whence art Thou ? " Alas ! It was too late 
to answer now. Pilate had committed himself 
to injustice ; and Jesus gave him no answer. 

And Pilate spake again, " Dost Thou not 
speak even to me ? Dost Thou not know that I 
have power to set Thee free, and have power to 
crucify Thee ? " Power ! How so ? Was jus- 
tice nothing ? Was truth nothing ? Innocence 
nothing? Conscience nothing? 

In fact, Pilate had no such power. And Jesus 
pitied the hopeless bewilderment of this man, 
and gently answered him, " Thou hast no power 
against Me whatever, had it not been given thee 
from above; therefore, he that betrayed Me to 
thee hath the greater sin." 

Pilate in the depths of his soul felt the truth 
of the words, and silently acknowledged the su- 



" Jesus Before Pilate." 203 

periority of his bound and lacerated victim. 
Then Pilate led Jesus forth, and looking at 
Him, as He stood silent and in agony, but 
calm and dignified, he said : 

" Behold your King?" " Shall I crucify 
your King ? " And the people responded, " We 
have no King but Caesar. And if thou let this 
Man go, thou art not Caesar's friend." 

At that name Caesar, Pilate trembled. This 
completely mastered him. Then Pilate gave 
Jesus up to be crucified. 



204 The Life of Jesus Christ, 



CHAPTER XX. 

" THE GREAT TRAGEDY." 

The crucifixion is the third and closing scene 
in the heartless tragedy. There is no time now 
to question about the guilt or innocence of the 
thrice condemned victim. 

The sentence of death has been passed, and 
the law must be speedily executed. " As a 
Lamb He is led to the slaughter, so was Christ 
led from the garden of Gethsemane; and as a 
sheep before its shearers is dumb, so stood He 
in the hall of Caiaphas and at the bar of Pilate ; 
and now on the hill of Calvary He is lifted up 
upon the cross, and there endures the sentence, 
not of Pilate, but of a greater Judge passed upon 
Him as our surety. 

The soldiers stripped the scarlet robe, stained 
with innocent blood, from the royal Redeemer, 
and they clothed Him in His own artless ap- 
parel. They prepared the huge cross, and laid 
it, in part at least, upon His shuddering shoul- 



" The Great Tragedy." 205 

der. The centurion marched the Paschal 
Lamb out, in company with two malefactors, 
amid myriads of spectators, coldly inquisitive, 
or furiously hostile, and the sad procession 
moved on towards the place of a skull. 

This was, indeed, a sad procession, but the 
most memorable that ever moved upon the earth. 
It was more significant than any triumphal 
march, and far more sorrowful than any funeral 
cortege the world has ever known. 

See " The Man of sorrows " on His way to 
death ! Sadly, silently, sorrowfully He moves 
toward Golgotha, with the cross, the dread in- 
strument, resting on His lacerated back. The 
air was rent with taunts, and insults, and blas- 
phemies, as He dragged His weary, aching 
limbs toward Calvary, to die, that His vile tor- 
mentors might live. But on the way to the place 
of execution the Son of Man fainted, and fell 
under the heavy burden ; and the cross was laid 
on one Simon, a Cyrenean. They hurry Him 
on, in His weakness, to the agonies of Calvary. 

Let us take our stand upon the neighboring 
hill and view the awful tragedy. Three crosses 
rise high above the heads of a maddened popu- 
lace. The Koman soldiers have pitched guard, 



206 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

and with measured step, uplifted spear, and 
flashing helmets pace the arena of death. Stand- 
ing by the cross is a group of women, the 
Mother of Jesus, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary 
Magdalene. 

The place where the Saviour died is the most 
sacred spot on earth. Men may revere the mem- 
ory of their illustrious dead. They may rear 
monuments in honor of the Patriot, the States- 
man, and the Philanthropist ; but in all the 
archives of history there is no name like that of 
Jesus, and no shrine of devotion before which 
men bow, to be compared with the cross of Cal- 
vary. 

The cross of Christ is the central point in 
human history, the boundary line between earth 
and heaven. We love to contemplate the Saviour 
in His life-work on earth; for each act has its 
place in the divine plan, and every achievement 
its lesson of love for suffering and sinning 
humanity. 

But we love most to view Him in His self- 
sacrificing love and devotion to the human race, 
because the lessons associated with the most 
precious memories of Christ cluster around the 
cross, and lift us nearer to heaven. We delight 



" The Great Tragedy." 207 

to revel amid the serene, sublime virtues of the 
life of Jesus ; but it derives pleasures infinitely 
deeper and purer, beneath the shadows of His 
crimson cross, and the gloom and glory of His 
new sepulchre, left empty on the morning of the 
third day. But the hour had fully come for 
the offering up of the great sacrifice, and the 
Voluntary Victim was ready to die. 

The curtain rises at nine o'clock in the morn- 
ing, and the last scene in the divine tragedy 
begins. The meek and lowly Jesus stands face 
to face with the king of terrors, but shudders not 
during all the lingering agonies of His most 
dreadful death. 

The rude soldierly placed Him upon the 
rugged cross, exposed His lacerated flesh and 
bleeding wounds to the gaze of the vast multi- 
tude of spectators. And with deadening blows 
they drove the huge spikes through His tender 
hands, hands that had been lifted and dropped 
benedictions upon the poor and the needy. 

They, also, with relentless stroke drove nails 
through His feet; feet which had always run 
upon willing errands of love and mercy for suf- 
fering humanity. Now the crimson, gory cross, 
with its living burden hanging helpless upon it, 



208 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

was lifted up, and with cruel force dropped into 
its place, causing the most excruciating pains 
and agonizing groans. Then there was placed 
over the head of the Nazarene an inscription, 
written in three languages, " Jesus of Nazareth, 
the King of the Jews." 

So the chief priests sent and besought the 
Governor to change the timely title, which he 
had given to the crucified Nazarene. But it was 
all in vain. " What I have written, I have writ- 
ten, it is true, and changes not," was the reply 
which Pilate made. 

So the dying King, the truest, the greatest, 
and the noblest of the race, still reigned, though 
His throne was but a rugged cross, and His 
crown a bloody wreath of piercing thorns. 

It was probably at this moment of inconceiv- 
able horror that the voice of the Son of Man was 
heard, calmly praying in divine compassion for 
His brutal and pitiless murderers, and for all 
who in their sinful ignorance crucify Him 
afresh, " Father, forgive them, for they know 
not what they do." 

The Saviour, Who knew no sin, was numbered 
with the transgressors. On either side was 
placed a thief, as if to make His humiliation 



" The Great Tragedy." 209 

more complete, and if possible to add to His 
ignominious death. 

For a time these criminals joined the merci- 
less persecutors in casting insults into the face 
of the dying Saviour. But at length the suffer- 
ing Innocence, which hung in meekness, shamed 
into silence, and deepened into penitence, and 
at last, one of the criminals cried out, " Lord, 
remember me," and the miserable malefactor 
received pardon on the cross. One word from 
the lips of the Son of God lifted the heavy bur- 
den of guilt from the bleeding heart of the dying 
thief, and his soul went up into Paradise. 

The loving ear of the Saviour, even amid the 
agonies of the cross, was quick to catch the faint- 
est ascents of faith, though they fell, in weak- 
ness, from the lips of a dying thief. 

The soldiers in charge of the suffering 
Saviour divided His garments among them- 
selves, and for His seamless coat they cast lots. 
Thus they fulfilled the prophecy which said, 
" They parted My raiment among them, and for 
my vesture they did cast lots." 

The fierce heat of the sun beat down upon 
the head of the Koyal Victim. The sufferings of 
the crucifixion were intensified by the fearful 



210 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

thirst following the painful convulsions on the 
cross. 

So He called for water, but they offered Him 
vinegar mingled with gall instead, but He re- 
fused it. Human sympathy would, at least, have 
let the victim of such agony die in peace. 

But the malignant hatred of His enemies 
ignored all the claims of compassion ; and, with 
the most vindictive irony, the rabble mob, for 
three long hours, with sneers and taunts, they 
poured insult and mockery upon their crucified 
King. 

But Jesus knew what the victories of the 
cross demanded. Hence He bore its indignities 
and agonies with unwavering submission and 
fortitude. Despising its shame, He endured, 
most patiently, all its sufferings. Not a murmur 
escaped His fevered lips. 

He was reviled, but He kept His peace. Smit- 
ten, but resisted it not; mocked, but bore it all 
in silence ; and afflicted, but opened not His 
mouth. 

All nature sympathized with the crucified 
One in His agonies. At twelve o'clock the 
heavens were gradually darkened, and night 
climbs up to the sun at noon day, wrapping in 



"The Great Tragedy." 211 

awful gloom the awe-stricken multitude who 
stood in blank amazement around the cross. The 
darkness increased, until a thick veil shrouded 
the face of the fading firmament. 

The stars shone out like funeral torches, shed- 
ding over the tragic scene a pale and lurid light. 
Midnight darkness had mantled the earth at 
noontide. It was night at high-noon in the 
streets of the doomed city. It was night all 
over the Holy Land, where Jesus had let His 
light shine as a sun for many days. 

The rulers of Israel had attempted to blot out 
of existence the Sun of Righteousness ; and God 
had smote all the people with midnight blind- 
ness. The Holy City had closed her eyes against 
the Light of Life ; and Jehovah veiled the 
heavens in deepest darkness. The keepers of 
the city sat sad and silent in their watch towers 
by the gates. The sentinels stood still upon her 
lofty battlements. All nature gave signs of 
desolation, and this dark noontide struck the 
multitude with terror as they groped their way, 
they knew not where, in the darkness of a day 
swallowed up in the blackness of night. 

The darkened sun and the shadowing earth 
both testified to the magnitude of the crime of 



212 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

crucifying the Son of God. They both gave 
evidence of deepest grief at, and closest sym- 
pathy with, the sorrows of their Creator. The 
sun in all his journey ings, had never looked 
down upon such a sight as that on Calvary. 

The earth refused to let her inhabitants gaze 
on such an awful scene without feelings of deep- 
est awe and reverence. 

Hence, while the rocky sides of Golgotha 
were bursting open, a wonderful reaction took 
place in favor of the dying ]STazarene. The rock- 
ing earth filled the hearts of friends and foes 
alike with terror and dismay; and the cries of 
the multitude went up amid the convulsions, in 
humble acknowledgments of His Messiahship. 

It was probably at this time that Jesus gave 
vent to that mournful exclamation, " My God, 
My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me." 

The cause of this complaint is stated in the 
complaint itself. Christ was now forsaken. 
This is a very mysterious subject. 

Christ now stood at a great moral distance 
from the Father. In this sense was He for- 
saken. Two classes comprise all rational beings 
in the universe — the holy and the unholy. Be- 



"The Great Tragedy." 213 

tween these two there is a great gulf fixed. It 
was amid the unholy that Christ now stood. 
In His personal character, as the Son of God, 
He had no sin. He was the holy One of Israel. 
But in His official character, as the surety of 
lost men, He had sin; and therefore was now 
removed to that moral distance from God to 
which sin removes all on whom it is found ; 
and of this distance He had at this time a most 
painful sense. 

Sin not only divides between God and the 
sinner, its tendency is to break the links which 
bind the sinner to other creatures, and places 
him alone in the universe. Christ as the Sin 
Bearer was now forsaken. Such was the posi- 
tion of Christ our Surety, at this time. He 
looked around upon hosts of men on earth ; He 
looked along the ranks of angels in heaven ; He 
looked up to the divine throne, but every eye 
was averted, every face was hid. 

He felt that He was forsaken; and even for- 
saken of God the Father. We do not mean that 
He was forsaken of the divine essence, for in 
this sense no creature can be forsaken of God. 

Nor was the union between His two natures 



214 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

now dissolved; but God was dealing with Him 
as He would have done with the real offender 
had he now stood before Him. 

ISTor do we affirm that the Son now ceased to 
be the object of the Father's love. The earth 
was dark, and the heaven's shone not ; but from 
the cross came a moral effulgence which irradi- 
ated both earth and heaven beyond the splendor 
of a thousand suns. 

The Father, therefore, did not cease to love 
the Son, but He ceased to manifest that love. 
Christ now endured the direct infliction of the 
divine wrath. The curse denounced against sin 
falls upon the sin-bearer. 

To a spectator of the scene, it must have ap- 
peared as if the throne of righteousness had 
fallen, while wickedness had resolved to cele- 
brate its fall by walking in triumph through the 
universe. 

What a scene was this! This was the hour, 
above every other, when Christ needed comfort 
and help; and yet this was the hour when He 
was forsaken. And never was any being more 
completely forsaken than the Son of God now 
was. 

No wonder that He should cry out, " My God, 



"The Great Tragedy." 215 

My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me ! " The 
centurion expressed the sentiment of thousands, 
when he said, " Truly this Man was the Son of 
God." 

In thickest folds the storm clouds gather 
round the bleeding victim, lashed into fury by 
fierce lightnings which, falling upon the silent 
habitation of the dead, as if to wake into life the 
slumbering atoms of mortality, and reanimating 
the long-forgotten dust of ages. 

Amidst the commotion the veil of the temple 
is rent from top to the bottom, and the holy 
place was exposed to public gaze. 

There are other witnesses than those upon the 
sacred mount. Calvary is enriched with a cor- 
onet of living stars, and from the shining portals 
of the twelve-gated city the angels and arch- 
angels are watching with intense anxiety every 
move in the awful drama. 

The glorious Prince of Peace calmly awaits 
the approach of the final charge. For a moment 
the Redeemer bows beneath the strong arms of 
His antagonists, apparently defeated, and hell 
rings out tones of victory; but ere the jubilanl 
song had ceased to echo alone; the gloomy abode, 
the dying Victor planted His bruised heel on the 



216 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

serpent's head, and cried with a loud voice, " It 
is finished ! " 

Justice dropped her pointless sword; and 
Mary's tears and pleading voice were turned 
into tears of joy, while hovering angels catch the 
song as it quivers on the Conqueror's lips, and, 
" It is finished " becomes the sevenfold chorus 
of earth and heaven. 

Hark ! " It is finished " rolls from throne 
to throne in glory. " It is finished " trembled 
on the lips of every seraph. " It is finished " 
is the song of choral angels as they travel to 
their thrones of light. Hark ! How it rever- 
brates through all the temples and pavilions of 
eternity. Raise it every voice, sound it every 
harp; ye thrones and dominions, principalities 
and powers, pass along the rapturous acclaim; 
ye archangels, seraphim and cherubim, raise! 
raise! the overpouring symphony, until every 
dwelling-place of universal being shall vibrate 
with the triumphant sound. 

" It is finished," Redemption's work is con- 
summated, the Atonement for Sin is accom- 
plished. " Truly this Man was the Son of God." 



"The Burial." 217 



CHAPTEE XXL 



We return from Calvary. The sorrows of 
the Son of God are now ended, and His body 
hangs lifeless upon the cross. 

The sun was fast sinking toward the Western 
horizon, and the chief priests were much 
alarmed lest the sanctity of the Jewish Sabbath 
should be defiled, if the bodies remained on the 
crosses. 

Hence they besought Pilate that the legs of 
the victims might be broken, in order to hasten 
their deaths, that they might be taken down 
before the setting of the sun. 

But when they came to Jesus, seeing no signs 
of life, they preserved the symbolism of the 
Paschal Lamb of which He was the great anti- 
type. But, to be certain that His soul had 
passed out of the body, a soldier thrust a spear 
into His side, from which flowed blood and 
water, proving the certainty of His death. 

Death brings out the true meaning of life. It 



218 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

uncovers its virtues, reveals its fragrance, and 
adorns all its grand achievements. 

No man was ever so great, in the estimation 
of men, before, as after he had passed with 
heroic fortitude through the trying ordeal of 
death. So is was, that the noble se'f-sacrificing 
death of Jesus did more than anything else to 
give tone, caste, and emphasize the grand life 
He had lived. 

The noble life would long ago have ceased to 
move the hearts and shape the destinies of 
men had it not been crowned with a still greater 
and grander death in which it survived, and has 
swept on down the centuries, molding the lives 
and brightening the hopes of the children of 
God. Pilate says, " Towards evening I threw 
my mantle around me and went down into the 
city towards the gates of Golgotha. The sacri- 
fice was consummated. The crowd was return- 
ing home, still agitated and sad. What they 
witnessed at Calvary had stricken them with 
terror and remorse. 

I returned to the pretorium, sad and pensive. 
On ascending the stairway, the steps of which 
were still stained with the blood of the Xaza- 
rene, I perceived an old man in a suppliant 



"The Burial." 219 

posture, and behind him several women in tears. 
He threw himself at my feet, and wept bitterly. 
It is painful to see an old man weep." 

Pilate said : " Who are thou % " and " What 
is thy request ? " and he replied, " I am Joseph 
of Arimathea, and I am come to beg the body 
of Jesus, and to ask permission to bury it." 
And Pilate gave him leave. We can easily 
imagine the struggle which took place in the 
breast of Joseph before he made his request of 
Pilate. 

He was, indeed, a disciple, but hitherto he 
had concealed the fact, and there was nothing 
now to prevent him from concealing it forever. 

Joseph knew that after going to Pilate to 
beg the body, he could no longer conceal his 
relation to the crucified Nazarene. 

This act, then, was not more kind toward the 
Saviour than it was heroic and magnanimous in 
itself. It displayed astonishing faith, it evinced 
a self-denial of no common kind. 

His credit with his countrymen, his place in 
the synagogue, his rank as one of the counsel- 
lors of Israel, all were now placed in jeopardy, 
and willingly so by this noble-minded and self- 
devoted man. Joseph and his associates took 



220 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

the body of the crucified Saviour down from the 
cross, and tenderly bore it to the tomb. St. John 
states that Nicodemus took part in the burial, 
for he " brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, 
as the manner of the Jews is to bury their dead." 
This was the saddest funeral procession ever 
seen on earth. The company was small, but 
their grief was too deep for utterance. Their 
demeanor was in keeping with the solemnity 
and sacredness of the occasion. 

The light of a life clearer to them than their 
own had gone out in darkness and death. The 
darkest night that ever mantled the earth was 
gathering its evening shades around them 
when they reached the garden, and came to the 
new sepulchre. 

Here the faith of His followers must have 
faltered. Here they felt that they were to 
bury the hopes of the world, and they laid 
their sacred burden down in tears at the mouth 
of the open grave. The necessary prepara- 
tions for the burial were soon made. The man- 
gled and blood-stained body was carefully 
washed and clothed in fine linen. It was also 
perfumed with myrrh and aloes provided for 
in its imperfect embalmment. 



"The Burial." 221 

His obsequies were so humble, and His 
burial so unostentatious. 

Never did death gain such another triumph 
as this. But ah! this was a triumph which 
cost him dear, for by this triumph he destroyed 
himself. This sepulchre in which the Saviour 
lies is not His own, for as He had no roof of 
His own to shelter Him when He lived, so 
He had no grave of His own in which to be 
laid when dead. As He was born for others, 
and died for others, so was he buried for others ; 
and, therefore, He was laid not in His own 
grave, but in that of another man. To this 
grave was He borne by a small company of 
very humble followers; for of all the vanities 
of this world of vanity, perhaps there is not a 
greater than a splendid and pompous funeral. 
Still a proper respect is due to the body of 
every man, from the consideration of what it 
once was, and especially the body of the just 
and the good from the consideration of what 
it shall yet be. 

A magnificent funeral the body of Jesus did 
not receive, for neither the circumstances in 
which He died, nor the feelings of the dis- 
ciples admitted of this; but with seemly re- 



222 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

spect and decent solemnity was it carried to 
the tomb of Joseph. 

And the hour was such as befitted this deep- 
ly solemn scene. The body of the Saviour 
was carried to the grave, not at the hour of 
morn, or amid the effulgence of noonday, but 
when the last and setting rays of the sun were 
falling on the earth. 

Amid the shadows of the approaching eve 
did this little band tread in tears the path 
which led from the summit of Calvary, down 
the valley to the garden and the grave. The 
work of the Son of Man is at an end, as far as 
sacrifice is concerned, and now He rests. 

Jesus had lived in poverty, had been cruci- 
fied as a malefactor ; but was buried as a King. 
Joseph and Nicodemus, both men of means and 
honorable counselors, were interested in His 
burial. 

The one furnished the sepulchre, the fine 
linen and robes, and the other the costly per- 
fumes which gave Him a burial " with the rich 
in His death." 

The last kiss, the pledge of undying love for 
their slain King had been given. Then they 
laid His sacred body in the new tomb, hewn 



" The Burial." 223 

out of a rock, and then rolled a great stone 
against its entrance, and the burial was over. 

The body of Jesus was left in the grave, 
while the disciples went their way to mourn 
over what they conceived to be an irreparable 
loss. The buried Saviour slept quietly in the 
new sepulchre that night. The next day was 
the great Paschal Sabbath. 

The courts of the holy temple were filled 
with formal worshippers. The white robed 
priests were busy with their offerings for the; 
sins of the people. The voices and the trumpets 
of the Levites were loud and long in their 
calls for devotion. 

The high priest, in his sacerdotal robes, 
showed with generous splendor before the gaz- 
ing multitude. But it must have been with 
feelings mingled with tears that they passed 
through the services of that memorable day. 
The holy of holies, for centuries veiled in awful 
majesty, save to the high priest who was only 
permitted to enter into the sacred enclosure 
once a year, and then not without blood. The 
presence chamber of deity no longer filled with 
divine glory, was now exposed to the gaze of 
the whole congregation. The scenes of the past 



224 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

eventful day still crowded their melancholy 
memories. 

The innocent blood called down upon their 
own and the heads of their children was still 
fresh upon their crimson souls. " 

But the chief priests fearing the resurrec- 
tion of the crucified ISTazarene, went to the Gov- 
ernor at evening fall, and obtained permission 
to place the seal of state upon the mouth of 
the sepulchre, and station a company of sol- 
diers to guard the sacred place. 

This was done under pretense, that His dis- 
ciples might come by night and steal Him away, 
and proclaim His resurrection from the dead, 
as an evidence of His Messiahship. The sol- 
dier guard was consequently appointed, and 
took up their station at the sepulchre. 

The account of the burial of Jesus is closed 
with a very touching picture, a picture of sin- 
gular truth and beauty. 

" And there was Mary Magdalene, and the 
other Mary, sitting over against the sepul- 
chre." Such an incident as this, an impostor 
is not likely to have thought of, for the purpose 
of filling up His picture, and yet how true to 
nature is it! 



" The Burial." 225 

The most trying circumstance of all in the 
death of our friends is to lay them in the grave, 
and to leave them there. 

These two women had followed the Saviour 
to Calvary, and from Calvary to the grave; no 
farther can they follow Him ; here must they 
leave Him ; but, oh ! how can they go away from 
that grave ? 

Their hearts are buried with their Master in 
the tomb, and the only happiness they can feel 
now is to sit and watch beside the sepulchre. 
All the other friends of Jesus had departed. 

The evening is fast setting in. The sunlight 
has faded on the Mount of Olives, and the thick 
shadows of the city lie across the valley of Je- 
hoshaphat. There is silence now on that hill 
of Calvary; and a deep calm amid the gardens 
around the place where the Lord lay. Every 
moment are the shadows deepening, still are the 
two Marys sitting beside the grave. 

They mark not the approach of the darkness, 
for love still binds them to the spot. 

They can only think of the grave, and the 
honored Master Who sleeps within it. And 
here would they have continued to sit and watch 
till the third day had dawned, and the Cruci- 
fied One had come forth, had not the arrival of 
*5 



226 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

the Roman soldiers compelled them to depart. 

There is one important fact which has never 
been denied, and that is " that Christ was 
buried." No one ever doubted that, no one ever 
denied that, no one ever controverted that. 

He was buried, in a particular manner, just 
as He died, in a particular manner. The se- 
pulchre of Christ was an aperture in a rock; a 
cavity hewn out of a natural rock. 

So there was no approaching the sepulchre 
of Christ but by the mouth of it ; there was no 
undermining it; there was no way of the body 
getting out of the grave but by the way it got 
in, namely, " by the mouth of the sepulchre." 

But the mouth of the sepulchre was shut up, 
sealed up, fortified with a great stone rolled 
against its mouth. The stone was sealed with 
the royal arms, the imperial signet was attached 
to the stone, so that it was supposed it could 
never be infringed upon, never could be vio- 
lated; and to make it still more inviolable, it 
was guarded by Rome's veteran legions. 

Jesus the Nazarene died on the cross, and 
was laid in the sepulchre, and there He rested 
until the morning of the third day. 

" He made His grave with the wicked, and 
with the rich in His death." 



" The Empty Sepulchre." 227 



CHAPTEK XXII. 



Twice had the setting sun and the gathering 
shadows been seen in the west, and once had 
the East brightened with the early light, since 
the disciples bore away the body of their cruci- 
fied Lord to the grave; and now the third day 
is about to dawn. 

Let us take our station on one of the emi- 
nences, and watch the opening of the day. The 
mountains of Moab run along on the east like a 
waving line traced on the sky. The pure light 
springs up peacefully behind them, revealing 
once more the soft beauty of the hills and val- 
leys of the land of Judah. 

The clouds hang motionless in the sky ; not a 
breath of air stirs the trees, or moves the grass, 
or ruffles the waters. 

Below is the slumbering city, and on the east 
of it, like a lofty pyramid of gardens and fig- 
trees, stands Mount Olivet. 



228 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Softly does the light break on this lovely 
scene. Now it tints the summit of the moun- 
tains, now it gladdens the vines in the valley, 
now it flickers on the roofs of the little Bethle- 
hem, now it lights up every ravine and stream- 
let, and overhanging rock, and now it rests 
sweetly on the broad bosom of yonder plain — 
the valley of palm-trees, silvering its winding 
stream, and burnishing the surface of its lake, 
which, spread out in the hush of dawn, reflects 
like a mirror the light of the early day. 

Such was the morning on which Jesus rose 
from the dead. 

Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were 
last at the sepulchre on the evening of the first 
day, and these steadfast friends were the first 
to visit it on the morning of the third da v. 

They rested on the Sabbath according to the 
comandment. Strong as was their love, they 
visited not the grave of their Lord on that day ; 
but, ah ! we can easily imagine the sorrow in 
which this Sabbath day was passed. The grave 
had closed above their Master at the very time 
they expected His Kingdom to appear. 

That beautiful life of Christ seemed to be 
closed; friends were broken-hearted, His ene- 



"The Empty Sepulchre." 229 

mies were triumphant. The gloom of disap- 
pointment settled over His disciples. They 
said : " We trusted this had been He who 
should have redeemed Israel." How human 
they were ! In the dark hour of adversity they 
forgot His teachings when in prosperity. 

Those women wished that the Sabbath- might 
pass away, that they might enjoy the only com- 
fort now left them, that of visiting the grave of 
the beloved Master. 

As they who watch for the morning, so did 
these women wait for the return of the light; 
and when at length the first ray broke over the 
mountains which girdled the city, they rose up, 
and at an hour when we would have thought 
fear and darkness would have kept them from 
going abroad, they began their journey to the 
sepulchre. The third day all the prophecies 
and all the types had pointed as that on which 
Christ was to rise. 

Christ Himself had said : " Destroy this 
temple, and in three days I will build it again." 
It was fitting that some competent time should 
elapse between the death of Christ and His res- 
urrection. 

Had he revived immediately on being taken 



230 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

down from the cross, men might have doubted 
whether He ever had been dead. But when we 
see Him consigned to the grave, and continuing 
in it for the space of three days, there is no 
room for any doubt as to His death. As the two 
women go on their way, we hear them saying, 
one to the other, " Who shall roll us away the 
stone from the door of the sepulchre ? " Con- 
cerning the resurrection of their Lord, they ap- 
pear not even to have thought, although it had 
been the theme of prophecy, and had lately been 
foretold in their own hearing by Christ Him- 
self. So dark was the cloud that enveloped 
them. 

The object of their present journey was not 
to meet their risen Master, but to anoint the 
body of their buried Lord with sweet spices 
which they carried with them for that purpose. 

The stone which covered the mouth of the se- 
pulchre, and which now occasioned so much un- 
easiness to the women, was part of the arrange- 
ment by which the enemies of Christ hoped to 
falsify His prediction — to prevent His coming 
forth from the grave. 

One would have thought that now His perse- 
cutors would have been at rest. Jesus was dead 



" The Empty Sepulchre." 231 

and buried. But in truth, fear had as much to 
do with the measures to which His enemies had 
recourse as hatred. The words which He had 
spoken while yet alive still haunted them, and 
though they affected to treat the prediction of 
His resurrection as a vain boast, and spoke of 
Him as a deceiver, yet the embassy they sent 
to Pilate clearly shows the fears under which 
they labored that the prediction might after all 
turn out to be true. Even in the hour of vic- 
tory they anticipated defeat. 

As if the bands of death and the bars of the 
grave had been too weak, they affix the stone 
and the seal, and then they place around the 
tomb a guard of Roman soldiers. 

How much do we owe to these men ? To the 
malice of the enemies of the Gospel are we in- 
debted for the clear evidence of the great fact 
by which the gospel is established. Around the 
sepulchre every precaution had been taken 
which fear could suggest or malice employ. 
This is a new tomb, and should any one come 
forth from it, it must be He and no other. This 
tomb is hewn in the rock ; it has only one en- 
trance, and that is carefully sealed and 
strongly guarded. Neither force nor fraud, 



232 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

therefore, can violate it. But all these precau- 
tions we owe not to the care or the foresight of 
friends, but to the fears and the malice of ene- 
mies. The means which man in his weak coun- 
sels devised to prevent the resurrection have 
become the great vouchers to the world of the 
truth of that resurrection. 

The more numerous the guards posted at the 
sepulchre, the more numerous the witnesses of 
the triumph of Christ over death and the grave. 
But other and mightier guards were around 
this sacred spot. Here were the angels of God 
keeping watch over the sepulchre to guard and 
attend to God's anointed Son. 

Still we hear the anxious inquiry of the 
women, " Who shall roll us away the stone from 
the door of the sepulchre ? " as they pass on the 
way, and the only answer returned is a repe- 
tition of the question, " Who shall roll us away 
the stone ? " Still they press on their way, and 
love impels them to go forward. The stone was 
already rolled away. 

Ah, how thankful would these women have 
been for the sight of their dead Master ! Little 
did they anticipiate the joyful surprise that 
awaited them. While they were going to the 



11 The Empty Sepulchre." 233 

sepulchre, other events were taking place. The 
dawn of the third day found matters around 
the grave the same in all respects as they had 
been on the evening that Christ was interred. 

The door of the sepulchre was still closed, 
the seal remained unbroken, Jesus still slept 
within, and the early light beamed upon the 
helmets of the soldiers who kept watch without. 

As yet nothing betokened a return to life on 
the part of the sleeper within the tomb. All 
was still, both within and without, but now 
matters begin to be changed. Amid signs of 
awful terror did Jesus die; amid signs of light 
and glory did He rise again. 

Amid the shadows of the eve did weeping 
friends carry Him to the grave; but He comes 
forth from the tomb amid the shouts of the re- 
joicing earth and the songs of the exulting 
heavens. 

St. Matthew records it as follows : " As it 
began to dawn." Yes, that is just what it did. 
It began to dawn, a new tender light shot up in 
the eastern sky, the Orient trembled with a new 
presence, and glowed as with an infinite sur- 
prise, 

Christianity is a continual " dawning." 



234 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

When Christ comes the light comes; when 
Christ shines upon the life the darkness flees 
away. The light of the newly sun had just 
visited the earth, but scarcely has his first ray 
been reflected from the battlements of the city 
when all things around the grave are lighted up 
by a brighter splendor than the light of day. 

The gardens and the fountains, the roofs of 
the temple, the valleys and the hills around the 
city, all now glow beneath a radiance more daz- 
zling by far than was ever shed by an earthly 
sun upon the earth. But whence is this light ? 
It is the Sun of Righteousness rising. And 
now an earthquake shakes the world. 

This is the summons to men to rise and greet 
the Redeemer of men. Lebanon trembles and 
all its cedars. Bashan trembles and all its 
oaks ; and Tabor, and Hermon, and Carmel, 
and Jezreel's plain, and the beauteous Sharon. 
But was it terror that now made the earth to 
shake, or did it not rather leap for joy? Did 
it not exult and shout that its Lord was return- 
ing from the grave? 

" Lord, when Thou wentest out of Seir, when 
Thou marchest out of the field of Edom, the 
earth trembled; the mountains melted from be- 



11 The Empty Sepulchre." 235 

fore the Lord, even that Sinai from before the 
Lord God of Israel ! " 

While the earth yet trembled, the terrors of 
the scene are still further increased by the des- 
cent of an angel. He approaches the tomb, and 
breaks the seal and rolls back the stone from 
the door of the sepulchre. This visitant was 
the servant of Him who clothes Himself with 
light as with a garment, and in the same glori- 
ous robe had He now arrayed His minister. 

" His countenance " as he stood beside the 
tomb was radiant with light, and without chal- 
lenge from the soldiers appointed to guard it, 
he threw open the door, " His countenance was 
like lightning, and his raiment white as snow; 
and for fear of Him the keepers did shake, and 
became as dead men." There was no earthly 
foe which these soldiers would not have dared 
to meet. 

He whom the soldiers now encountered was 
no warrior of earth ; he was one of God's special 
messengers; and a single look at him was like 
lightning, and it sufficed to overwhelm them 
with terror, and to lay them prostrate on the 
earth. 

The ministry of this angel served an import- 



236 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

ant purpose. It indicated to the world the con- 
currence of the Father in the resurrection of 
the Christ. Christ did not steal out of that 
sepulchre. He came forth only when the angel 
of justice opened the door of the prison. What 
more certain token can we demand that the 
Father accepted Christ's death as a full atone- 
ment for the sins of the world ? " Who is he 
that condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea, 
rather, that is risen again." 

The soldiers were yet trembling under the 
terror of the angel. For to them the glory of 
this angel was most marvelous. When a glory 
more dazzling and terrible than even that of the 
angel beamed upon their sight. This new 
splendor came not from above; it shone forth 
from the tomb of Joseph. But can it be that 
He, who for three days has lain here the pris- 
oner of death, is now to come forth \ Yes. 
Prophets have sung of His resurrection. Jesus 
Himself has foretold it, and it must needs be. 
To the decree of heaven, man had the audacity 
to oppose, and rolled a stone against the door 
of the sepulchre, and sealed it, and placed a 
guard over it. 

Vain attempt! Although mountains had 



"The Empty Sepulchre." 237 

been been piled on mountains, till the towering 
mass threatened the heavens, though the seal of 
Csesar had been affixed to the tomb, before the 
presence of Him who lay within, that seal 
would have been broken, these mountains would 
have skipped like rams, and the little hills like 
lambs. 

He comes! He comes! The same Christ 
who stood before Pilate, the same Christ who 
so lately wore the purple robe and the crown of 
thorns, the same Christ who died on Calvary, 
the same Christ Whom Joseph carried to the 
tomb. 

He comes; the soldiers recognize Him. But, 
oh! what majesty and glory encompass Him! 
Now, behold all ye warriors of Rome! Now 
is the moment to put forth your prowess. Why 
do ye hang back, and exhibit such dismay and 
fear ? Why are the joints of your loins loosed, 
while your knees smite one against the other? 

Why fall prostrate on the earth as dead men ? 
Alas! the armies of hell could not retain the 
body of the Lord in the grave, and shall the 
legions of Rome attempted to do so ? "The stout- 
hearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep ; 
and none of the men of might have found their 



238 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

hands. At Thy rebuke, God of Jacob, both 
the chariot and horse are cast into a deep 
sleep." 

The two women are still on their way to the 
sepulchre. Memory is busy within, and in this 
short journey they have reviewed all the scenes 
of sweet intercourse which they had enjoyed 
with their Lord, every word He spake, every 
act of power he performed as He walked with 
them by the waters of Galilee. 

Instantly they turn to the tomb ; and lo ! the 
stone is rolled away. They bend and look into 
the sepulchre, and here they behold the grave 
clothes and an angel who filled with celestial 
light and fragrance the place where the Lord 
had lain. 

" Fear not ye," said the angel, " for I know 
that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is 
not here ; for He is risen as He said. Come see 
the place where the Lord lay. He is risen ! " 

What sounds are these which now come from 
the empty sepulchre? 

He is risen! From the morning of Time 
till now had sounded forth the steady and un- 
varying peal, " He is dead ! He is dead ! " 
But now a new sound is heard in the musical 



11 The Empty Sepulchre." 239 

scale of heavenly song. It is, " He is risen ! " 
Of Elijah it was said, " He is ascended." 

Of Lazarus it was said, " He was raised " ; 
but for the first time it is now said, " He is 
risen." Yes, and in rising He broke the bars 
of death, and left open the portals of the grave 
that all His people might follow Him in due 
time. 

Meanwhile, one of the holy women who came 
to embalm the body of Jesus, but had not seen 
the angel, lingered sad and disconsolate around 
the empty tomb. The stone rolled back, and 
the empty sepulchre made her think that her 
Lord had been carried off, and not knowing 
where to find Him in order to render the last 
sad duties, she began to weep. Bending over 
the tomb, she saw two angels clothed in white, 
one at the head and the other at the foot of the 
place where Christ had lain. These angels 
said to her : " Woman, why weepest thou ? " 
and she said unto them : " Because they have 
taken away my Lord, and I know not where 
they have laid Him." 

Turning at the moment, she saw Jesus Him- 
self ; but, not recognizing Him, and supposing 
Him to be the gardener, she said : " Sir, if 



240 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

Thou hast taken Him away, tell me where Thou 
hast laid Him, and I will take Him away." 
Jesus said, " Mary ! " and immediately, she 
recognizing Him, she fell at His feet, saying, 
" Eabboni ! " that is, " Master." Then Mary 
Magdalene came and told the disciples that she 
had seen the Lord, and what things He had 
said unto her. 

Here are the indisputable facts which prove 
His resurrection: 

1. " Jesus was dead." 

2. " He was laid in the new tomb." 

3. " A guard of Eoman soldiers was placed 
in charge of that tomb." 

4. " The soldiers themselves announced the 
resurrection of Jesus." 

5. " The folded clothes show that Jesus was 
not stolen." 

6. " He appeared to Mary. Magdalene, then 
to two disciples going to Emmaus, then to 
Cephas, then to the twelve, then to five hun- 
dred brethren when assembled at Jerusalem, 
then to James, to all the apostles, and this oc- 
curred at several times. 

Thomas must not only see Him, but with his 
hands and fingers feel the prints of the nails 



" The Empty Sepulchre." 241 

and the scars of His wounds. They eat and 
drink with Him, receive instructions and com- 
missions from Him, and see Him taken up into 
heaven. 

Stephen, Paul and John the Divine saw Him 
after He was ascended into heaven. The 
soldiers who were set to guard the sepulchre 
are forced to be witnesses, as of His death, so 
of His resurrection. 

The coming of the Holy Ghost upon the 
Apostles, the miracles done, the gifts of the 
Spirit received in His name, and the faith of 
the world in Him do testify to the same ; so that 
there can be no reason in the world to doubt 
His resurrection. 

Christ is the resurrection; therefore, its 
source and spring, its author, and finished in 
a sense in which no other can be. 

Who:; He emerged from the tomb on the 
morning of the world's great Sabbath He 
brought life and immortality with Him, by 
which the perils of the deep sea, before await- 
ing the plunge of the diver, the treasures, be- 
fore lying in the deep mine, were by Him seized 
and brought up to the light of day. Look and 
16 



242 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

see the place where the Lord lay, and tremble 
— but rejoice with trembling. 

Is the stone there yet? If it is, if the stone 
is not yet rolled away, if the grave-stone and 
spices yet shroud and embalm the corpse, then 
let the darkness come and blot out the sun, and 
bid a long, long good-night to all the world's 
hopes of life, for existence is a feverish dream, 
and death shall be its ghastly but its welcome 
end. 

" But now is Christ risen from the dead, and 
become the first fruits of them that slept." 



" The Ascension of Jesus Christ." 243 



CHAPTEK XXIII 



" He led them out as far as to Bethany. And 
it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was 
parted from them, and carried up into heaven." 
The sentence was left incomplete; the benedic- 
tion was broken off, as it were, at a semi-colon. 
" While He blessed them." It is as the song 
of an ascending bird, now so clear, so sharp, so 
sweet, and now less so, and now, and now — 
and now — and it is gone, away into the light, 
away into the nativity of the morning, away 
into heaven! We should bless God for broken 
benedictions, for incomplete farewells. The 
way of the going seems to intimate the cer- 
tainty of the coming. As if Christ had said: 
" You have heard half the sentence now, the 
other half you shall hear in the morning." 

" Forty days " had now elapsed since the 
crucifixion. During those forty days nine 



244 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

times had He been visibly present to human 
eyes, and had been touched by human hands. 

But His body had not been merely the human 
body, nor liable to merely human laws, nor had 
He lived during those days the life of men. 
The time had now come when His earthly pres- 
ence should be taken away from them, until He 
returned in glory to judge the world. 

He met them in Jerusalem, and as He led 
them out toward Bethany He bade them wait 
in the Holy City until they had received the 
promise of the Spirit. He checked their eager 
inquiry about the times and the seasons, and 
bade them to be witnesses in all the world. 
These last farewells must have been uttered in 
the same wild, secluded upland country that 
surrounds the little village ; and when they were 
over, He lifted up His hands and blessed 
them, and, even as He blessed them, was parted 
from them, and as He passed before their 
yearning eyes " a cloud received Him out of 
their sight." 

Between us and His visible presence — be- 
tween us and that glorified Redeemer Who now 
sitteth at the right hand of God — that cloud 
still rolls. But the eye of Faith can pierce it; 



" The Ascension of Jesus Christ." 245 

the incense of true prayer can rise above it; 
through it the dew of the blessing can descend. 

And if He is gone away, yet lie has given 
us in the Holy Spirit a nearer sense of His 
presence, a closer infolding in the arms of His 
tenderness than we could have enjoyed even if 
we had lived with Him of old in the home of 
Nazareth, or sailed with Him in the little boat 
over the crystal waters of Gennesareth. 

We may be as near to Him at all times — and 
more than all when we kneel down to pray — as 
the beloved disciple was when he laid his head 
upon His breast. To ears that have been closed 
His voice may seem indeed to sound no longer. 
The loud noise of war may shake the world ; the 
calls of avarice and pleasure may drown the 
gentle utterance which bids us " Follow me " ; 
after two thousand years of Christianity the in- 
credulous murmurs of an impatient scepticism 
may make it scarcely possible for Faith to re- 
peat, without insult, the creed which has been 
the regeneration of the world. To all who will 
listen He still speaks. 

He promised to be with us always, even to 
the end of the world, and we have not found 
His promise fail. It was but for thirty-three 



246 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

short years of a lifetime that He lived on earth ; 
it was but for three broken and troubled years 
that He preached the gospel of the kingdom; 
but for ever, even until all the Eons have been 
closed, and the earth itself, with the heavens 
that now are, have passed away, shall every 
one of His true and faithful followers find 
peace and hope and forgiveness in His name, 
and that name shall be called " Emmanuel," 
which is, being interpreted, " God with us." 

The Ascension of Our Lord was in strict ac- 
cord with the words by which He had prepared 
His disciples to expect it. 

He had begun to speak of it as far back as 
the conversation recorded in the sixth chapter 
of St. J ohn, when He said : " I am the living 
bread which came down out of heaven." 

This gave offense, and they thought it a hard 
saying. To their murmuring He replied: 
" What and if ye shall see the Son of Man as- 
cend up where He was before ? " As the time 
drew near, He spoke with greater distinctness: 
" I go to prepare a place for you. Whither I 
go ye know. Greater works than these shall ye 
do, because I go to the Father. Ye have heard 
how I said, I go away and come again unto 



"The Ascension of Jesus Christ." 247 

you. If ye love Me, ye would rejoice because 
I said, I go unto My Father." And when their 
minds were bewildered, questioning what 
He could mean by the phrase, " a little while 
and I go to the Father," He said yet more 
plainly : " I came forth from the Father and 
am come into the world ; again I leave the world 
and go to the Father." Then on the eventful 
morning of the resurrection, when Jesus 
showed Himself to Mary in the garden and she 
was about to worship Him, He said unto her: 
" I am not yet ascended to My Father, and 
your Father; and to My God and your God." 

So clear are these statements that if the his- 
tory of His life had closed with that interview, 
the conclusion would be that He had ascended 
to heaven with the body which was raised from 
the tomb. 

But the Ascension is not a matter of infer- 
ence, for a chosen few were permitted to be- 
hold it. The eleven were with Jesus. He had 
given them reason to expect his withdrawal. 
Before His crucifixion He had " been with 
them " by day and by night, in the crowded 
streets and on the seashore, and in the desert 
place. 



248 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

After His passion " He showed Himself 
alive " for forty days, and as that period drew 
near to a close, He gave them commandment 
not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for 
the promise of the Father, which they had 
heard from His lips, and which would be ac- 
complished before many days; and then, as if 
He realized that He would not long tarry with 
them, they seized the opportunity to ask: 
" Lord, wilt Thou at this time restore again 
the Kingdom to Israel % " 

So He was preparing them for His depart- 
ure; and when the event occurred they were 
competent witnesses of the fact. 

It is in the day time ; the eleven are together ; 
Jesus leads them along by a familiar path 
which they have often trod with Him till they 
come even to the borders of Bethany. 

There the din of the city is hushed and they 
are concealed from view. There He talks with 
them, still in familiar speech, and gives them 
His benediction; and while He speaks, while 
His hands are lifted to bless them, He is parted 
from them ; He rises into the air ; their eyes fol- 
low; they look intently until a cloud receives 
Him out of their sight. And while they still 



"The Ascension of Jesus Christ." 249 

are gazing with wonder, two men stand by in 
white apparel to testify that Jesus has indeed 
gone up into heaven and shall come again in 
like manner. 

Thus did they behold the crowning glory of 
the Incarnation. Thus were they permitted to 
sec the fulfilment of the Saviour's words as He 
left them and went to the Father. 

Thus did they see that His resurrection from 
the grave was one step in the transition to a 
higher form of existence; a reunion of soul 
and body for " an unbroken eternity of life." 

Then they went back to Jerusalem with great 
joy, and made the temple arches bear witness 
to the ardor of their praise. 

This fact of the Ascension, while definitely 
recorded by Mark and Luke, is also interlinked 
with the whole system of Christian doctrine. 
The resurrection, as a fundamental truth of 
the Christian system, implies an Ascension to 
Glory. Its significance and value depend on 
His return to heaven. When death came, it 
caused a separation of the soul and body. The 
Saviour's body was insensible, lifeless, dead ; 
but on the third day it was revived, it left the 
grave- Then it was seen by man, and touched 



250 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

by human hands; not a phantom, eluding the 
grasp, but a true body with flesh and bone3, 
that talked and ate like men even as before it 
slept in the tomb ; but what was to be its final 
destiny ? 

There was no occasion for its remaining here 
as a living body; the work of Christ was fin- 
ished; the object of the Incarnation was accom- 
plished; there had been suffering enough and 
humiliation enough. ]STor could the body die 
again. Here was the victory over death, that 
the Saviour's body did not see corruption. 

To suppose the soul to leave it again after 
the reunion takes away the glory of the resur- 
rection. 

On that supposition, how was Christ's resur- 
rection superior to that of Lazarus? What 
value or significance had it if it was not a final 
resurrection, a reunion for eternity? 

That could not be ; and so we find Paul's con- 
fident statement : " Knowing that Christ, be- 
ing raised from the dead, dieth no more ; death 
hath no more dominion over Him." 

So the Ascension was the crowning testi- 
monial to His truth and power, confirming to 
the letter what He had said, and strengthen- 



11 The Ascension of Jesus Christ." 251 

ing the faith of His disciples at the time they 
were to go forth to testify of His majesty and 
love. 

The heavens had been opened and God's voice 
had been heard ; the powers of nature had been 
subject to Him; the prince of this world had 
trembled before Him; everything but the 
wicked heart of man had recognized his 
claims ; but the kings of the earth had set them- 
selves, and rulers had taken counsel against the 
anointed of the Lord; they had scourged and 
mocked and condemned and crucified Him. 
That was indeed a dark hour for the disciples. 

But the resurrection had dispelled that 
gloom. They were begotten again to a living 
hope. They had now an obvious and an infal- 
lible token that the plan of redemption was no 
failure, but a glorious success. 

" So He was parted from them, and a cloud 
received Him out of sight." So the Ever- 
lasting Doors were lifted up, and the Gates of 
Pearl stood wide ajar ; while the conquering 
ISTazarene swept in, and up the golden streets 
of the Heavenly City. He mounted the Father's 
Throne, and began to share that glory with Him 



252 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

again which He enjoyed before the world be- 
gan. 

In ancient times all noted conquerors fol- 
lowed their conquests with triumphal marches. 
Returning, with the spoils of war and the cap- 
tives taken, the conqueror, in the van of his 
victorious army, with kings and noted captives 
chained to his chariot wheels, would march, in 
triumphal procession, to marshal music which 
stirred the public heart, and fired the patriot- 
ism of the populace, until the city rang with 
the shouts of applause and honor to the victor 
and his victorious army. 

These processions were the glory of nations, 
marked new epochs in the history of nations, 
— the consummation of long repeated struggles 
and conquests — the crowning days of hard bat- 
tles and bloody victories. They were days of 
national triumph and personal honor, and 
which gave fame and fortune to the world's 
historic heroes. 

So our ascended Lord is only waiting the 
consummation of His work on earth, to have 
His triumphal march. He is only waiting the 
day of finished victory, when, accompanied by 
legions of angels, He will come, gather up the 



" The Ascension of Jesus Christ." 253 

redeemed of the earth — the trophies of His 
matchless victory. 

Grand, glorious and triumphant, indeed, will 
be the march of His victorious army, with the 
Captain of our salvation in the van of His shin- 
ing retinue, which will fill the heavens with its 
glory. There will be no captives in that pro- 
cession, groaning at His chariot wheels. But 
the Conqueror and the conquered will all re- 
joice together, as they speed on in triumph over 
the plains of light, toward the blessed city. 

Listen, ye lovers of martial music, to the 
grand chorus which bows the lofty heavens to 
lend a listening ear to its melting strains — 
music far sweeter than the chorus of the morn- 
ing stars which sang together at Creation's 
birth. Oh ! for the tongue of a Nightingale to 
sing, as, from the highest circle of Paradise, 
when she beholds the magnificent vision of all 
the events of all time consummated in this 
heavenly vision. 

Oh ! for the vision of a Kepler to discern, in 
the movements of the planets, the timing of 
Messiah's advent, and see all the heavenly 
bodies marshaled to do Him homage, and fur- 
nish music for the celestial march. Oh, for 



254 The Life of Jesus Christ. 

the fire of George Frederick Handel to kindle 
prophecy, story and suffering into song, and set 
all things in earth and heaven, from the sym- 
phony of shepherds to the grand chorus of arch- 
angels, aglow with the music of the Conquering 
King's triumphal march! 

But neither Nightingale, nor Dante, nor 
Kepler, nor Handel, though they call upon all 
things celestial and terrestrial, physical and 
moral, visible and invisible, ever reach the lofty 
strains of the sweet singer of Israel, when He 
tunes his lay to immortal eloquence, and sings, 
as the heavenly hosts sweep on toward the new 
Jerusalem, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates; 
and be lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the 
King of Glory shall come in." " Who is the 
King of Glory ? " inquire the keepers of the 
gates. And the answer comes, " The Lord 
strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle." 

Then the grand chorus salutes their ears 
again, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! even 
lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the 
King of Glory shall come in. Who is the King 
of Glory ? The Lord of Hosts, He is the King 
of Glory." 

The pearly gates fly open; the ascending 



" The Ascension of Jesus Christ." 255 

Lord passes in, in triumph, with His ransomed 
hosts, and the inquiry comes : " Who are 
these ? " And the answer is given : " These 
are they, who have come up through many trib- 
ulations, have washed their robes and made 
them white in the blood of the Lamb." 

And the Eternal City rings with the loud 
hosannas as the King and His royal subjects 
pass in. And all the host of heaven unite in 
ascribing " Honor, majesty and dominion unto 
Him Who sitteth upon the Throne of thrones, 
as Lord of Lords, and King of Kings, for ever 
and ever, for He is the King of Glory." 




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